Telecommunications, Media and Technology

Telecommunications

We offer unrivalled legal and industry expertise in advising telecommunications clients around the world on the critical regulatory and commercial issues that affect their businesses. These issues include:

• deployment of next generation access networks, particularly fibre-to-the premises, new forms of access regulation for these networks and the provision of broadband wholesale services. We have acted for key players on all of the major NGN projects in the Asia Pacific

• passive and active network infrastructure sharing transactions, including the sharing of mobile network infrastructure, domestic roaming and collocation agreements among telecommunications operators

• regulatory developments that fundamentally alter the existing industry structure, particularly the imposition of functional and structural separation as a regulatory remedy across a range of telecommunications markets

• investment in international connectivity and undersea cable capacity, including consortium arrangements, landing party agreements, cable systems procurement and IRUs and leasing of cable capacity, as well as satellite capacity arrangements

• the procurement and implementation of key OSS/BSS systems, network infrastructure rollouts and managed service projects, including billing, CRM and ESB solutions, radio and core network rollouts for voice and data, next generation HLR solutions and network management outsourcing

• competition law, including bundling of competitive and non-competitive services, on-net pricing discounts, vertical price squeeze and predatory pricing, price discrimination and contractual restrictions that limit competition
• providing advice to carriers, governments, local authorities and funders on the compatibility of programmes with the European Community state aid rules and the structuring of such arrangements, as well as supporting challenges where appropriate.

Media

We focus on strategic regulatory and commercial matters for broadcasters, new media companies and telecommunications clients.

We advise free to air and pay TV broadcasters on strategic transactions with other media industry participants, the acquisition of significant content rights, provision of broadcasting services over different platforms and licensing requirements. We work with international new media companies, on the full range of legal and regulatory issues that are often unique to their businesses.

We also advise our telecommunications clients on rights acquisition strategies and on the commercial transactions that underpin them, as well as on alliances and other co-operative arrangements with both traditional and new media companies.

Our media regulatory practice deals with market power issues arising from concentration and convergence in the media sector, as well as other service and content-related competition law and regulatory advice. We have undertaken considerable work recently in relation to market power issues arising out of control of premium content, such as top-tier sports rights and first-run Hollywood movies.

Technology

We focus on major technology procurement and outsourcing transactions, advising suppliers and users. We regularly advise on the negotiation, development and finalisation of complex IT procurement projects, providing transactional advice and support, covering:

• the design and implementation of procurement strategies and sourcing models for both multi- supplier and single-supplier procurements (procurement lifecycle, contracting terms, pricing models, service quality regimes)

• end-to-end procurement processes including project initiation, RFP preparation, supplier proposal review and down-select, and contract drafting and negotiation (both single project supply and services agreements to longer term global framework or master services agreements)

• contract management, including contract review and interpretation, monitoring service level regimes and managing governance models.