On November 26, 2021, the twenty-sixth session of the "Fudan Transnational Corporations and Law Forum" was held successfully online, entitled "Data Sovereignty Issues in Cross-border Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters for Transnational Corporations." The session was hosted and moderated by Dr LIU Lu, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow of Fudan University Law School, featuring two keynote speakers: Mr ZHANG Peng, the Senior Researcher of Beijing Normal University, and Ms PAN Cong, the General Counsel of SHAREit Group.

Mr ZHANG Peng introduced the main mechanisms for cross-border access to electronic data: the official channels of international judicial cooperation, the diplomatic channels based on the principle of reciprocity, and the direct request of data from the relevant individuals or corporations. Mr Zhang discussed the pros and cons of each approach. He then focused on the U.S. Cloud Act and the proposed EU e-Evidence Regulation as examples of how direct requests of electronic data to individuals and corporations were operationalized in practice. This approach essentially bypassed the data storage states and raised concerns of data security, conflicts of legal obligations of the relevant corporations, and infringement of data sovereignty of the states storing the data. Unlike the United States and Europe, China advocates for an approach emphasizing data security – that access to data across borders should be based on established international judicial and law enforcement cooperation channels with full respect of data sovereignty. Mr Zhang believed that the official channels of international judicial cooperation and law enforcement cooperation had great potentials to be substantially simplified to improve their efficiency, which would be the ideal way going forward.

Ms PAN Cong spoke from her perspective working for more than ten years with top-tier technology companies on the challenges dealing with cross-border data requests to assist criminal investigations and prosecutions. Ms Pan first explained the definition of cross-border data forensics. Using examples of well-known cases involving big-tech companies under the Cloud Act, Ms Pan argued that the current dilemma and challenges for technology companies lie in the balance of interests - both between judicial systems of different states and between states and businesses. Ms Pan also shared her experience on the current practice of technology companies in setting up formality substantive review of data requests in criminal proceedings to balance the public interest of criminal justice and personal data protection.

On December 10, 2021, the Forum will host the twenty-seventh session entitled "Hainan Free Trade Port's Financial Opening System: Presences, Problems and Thoughts" by HAN Long, Professor of Hainan University law school.