Technology, Media and Telecommunications

At Rajah & Tann Asia, our market leading Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice is one of the most established and respected practices in its field in the Asia Pacific region.

We are a leading team for legal services in both traditional TMT fields such as telecommunications, technology, media, data privacy, artificial intelligence, data analytics, smart contracts and blockchain technology as well as high-value specialised areas such as data security and cyberbreach readiness and response, IoT, e-commerce, entertainment, FinTech, Over-The-Top (OTT) and many others.

Cross Border Strength

The TMT teams within the Rajah & Tann Asia network work closely one with another across our various offices and practice areas to consistently provide clients with a streamlined cross-border service, with full support across all the countries in the ASEAN region and around the world through our network of numerous partner firms globally. As we are the largest legal network in the region with more than 750 legal professionals, we are able to provide end to end advice across a multitude of jurisdictions.

Our Capability

Across the TMT industry, we appreciate the challenges of staying innovative and profitable. Given our strength and network, we have amassed a wealth of experience on a full range of TMT work, from the biggest projects and transactions in South East Asia to highly complex regulatory matters, especially in the following areas:

Information Technology Procurement
Our broad experience and in-depth knowledge since the start of the dot com-era has enabled us to help numerous state-level major IT organisations across ASEAN in drafting and negotiating complex IT procurement contracts based on shared services, outsourcing and PPP models. We set the benchmark as pioneer draftsmen for various cloud computing contract structures, both from a vendor and a consumer perspective in the Asia Pacific region and in the rest of the world.

Information Technology Regulatory
As one of the region’s most experienced teams in this complex and dynamic area, we have been engaged by numerous state level IT regulatory bodies. We have recently been asked by the World Bank to draft the IT legislation for Mongolia and were also chosen to lead an electronic commerce legislative benchmarking exercise involving over 20 East Asian and Pacific nations. Other major international projects include drafting the ICT legislation for the Kingdom of Lesotho in Africa, working with the World Bank and the UNDP to draft new ICT laws and regulatory policies for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and ICT mandates in Brunei Darussalam and Bangladesh.

Our lawyers also served on various government committees to advise on IT regulatory policies in the region.

Digital Media – Procurement and Regulatory

Rajah & Tann Asia continues to hold a prominent position in media related work. We have been involved in major content licensing and digital media matters. We assist clients in content procurement matters such as in the drafting and negotiating of content license and distribution agreements. We also assist in submitting representation to regional media regulators on behalf of our media clients pertaining to securing the necessary statutory right to broadcast, license or distribute all forms of media both film based and digital in the Asia Pacific region.

Data/Cyber Security

In almost every industry, companies now collect, transfer, and share sensitive data across various means and applications. At the same time the legal requirements surrounding data privacy and protection have grown complex. Understanding the importance to navigate this complex environment, we have a dedicated and long-standing privacy practice within the TMT Group that are widely recognised as the leaders in the market.

Our experience in this area include the provision of advice on a broad range of data/cyber security issues, the drafting of data/cyber breach readiness and response plans and policies and the provision of training in relation to the same, including cyber breach simulation exercises. We have also advised on a host of data protection matters in Asia Pacific throughout a wide range of industries, including IT companies, financial institutions and insurance firms.

Financial Technology (FinTech)

Digital technology has disrupted the financial services industry and we have proven to be at the forefront of developments in the FinTech sector in South East Asia. To provide our clients understand fully the legal and compliance issues in this highly regulated sector, we draw expertise of our leading cross-practice teams from our Financial Institutions, TMT and Dispute Resolution groups across our offices in the region.

We consistently provide innovative legal solutions that are tailored to the needs of every stakeholder in the FinTech sector; these include financial institutions, FinTech start-ups, technology companies, venture capital and private equity firms, among others. Highlights of our experience include assisting clients on navigating the licensing and regulatory landscape, application of new FinTech SOP processes, conducting due diligence on new start-ups, assisting in building bridges with traditional banks’ FinTech labs as well as facilitating and preparing for presentations and meetings with regulators to access funding and product showcase.

Telecommunications Regulatory

We understand that success depends on how risks are managed in a changing regulatory and compliance environment. We stay constantly engaged with various regional telecommunications regulators on regulatory compliance matters and have been engaged both by the regulators and by the telecommunications industry. Our role also extends to acting as the Secretariat of the Asia Pacific Carrier Coalition.

We have managed various telecommunications regulatory submissions for our clients including engagements by numerous telecommunications service providers and equipment manufacturers to secure telecommunications regulatory clearance in the Asia Pacific region for over 10 years.

On the regional front, we have been engaged by the ASEAN Secretariat to facilitate a pan-ASEAN forum on legislative and regulatory reforms to collectively address convergence of IT, telecommunications and broadcasting across all ASEAN member countries.

At state level, the team helped the telecommunications regulator in Brunei formulate a new telecommunications licensing regime, including a regulator’s handbook and telecommunications licences.

Telecommunications Infrastructure

We have extensive experience in complex telecommunications infrastructure procurement agreements based on traditional and PPP models. We were also engaged as the lead telecommunications counsel in the first MVNO arrangements in both Singapore for the US$1 Billion Virgin Mobile MVNO and in the first Malaysian MVNO. We have been engaged in several infrastructure projects – most recently, as lead counsel for one of the largest submarine cable roll-outs in Asia Pacific the US$1.5 billion Palapa Ring project in Indonesia.