France pushes forward with digital service tax

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In a controversial move, French tax authorities have begun sending tax payment notices to a number of US technology companies for French digital tax services payments. The French government had suspended collections while negotiations on a broader overhaul of the global tax system played out at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Those talks have not produced a breakthrough.

Amazon, Facebook and Google are among the US tech firms that will have to pay the tax, which applies to companies with global revenue of more than €750 million ($894 million). The move risks US retaliation and it could slap retaliatory tariffs on $1.3 billion in French goods, including handbags and cosmetics, as soon as Jan. 6.

Quickview –

	July 2019 France enacted its Digital Service Tax legislation
	3% Rate of DST charged on gross income derived from digital services (so-called “taxable services”)
	€750 million Companies with global revenue from taxable services greater than €750m annually and with total taxable revenue from taxable services obtained in France exceeding €25 million annually are subject to the tax.
	$1.3 Billion Expected tariffs of 25% by the USA in retaliation for digital tax enforcement

New UK Tech Regulator to be operational from April 2021

The UK Government is to set up a new competition regime to provide consumers with more choice and control over personal data held by leading platforms such as Google and Facebook. Google and Facebook combined receive about two- thirds of the UK’s digital ad spending.

The plan is to create a Digital Markets Unit (DMU), which will be part of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The core of the regulation will be a new code of conduct to which tech monopolies will be required to adhere. The contents of that code have yet to be drawn up but the government’s intention is to “protect competition in digital markets funded by online advertising”.

Particular attention is being paid to the relationship between digital advertising and news publishing, based on last year’s CMA review into the future of British media. That report argued that “the behaviour of online platforms on whom news publishers rely is a key barrier to publishers developing sustainable business models online”.

IBM to cut up to 10,000 jobs in Europe ahead of strategic spinoff

International Business Machines Corp. is planning to cut about 10,000 jobs in Europe in an attempt to lower costs at its slow-growth services unit and prepare the business for a spinoff. tThe wide-ranging job cuts will impact about 20% of IBM's staff in Europe. The U.K. and Germany will have the most job cuts while Poland, Slovakia, Italy and Belgium will also be impacted.

Last month, the company announced it was splitting up the 109-year old company in order to better focus on its hybrid cloud business, which it sees as a

$1 trillion market opportunity. It will split off its IT infrastructure services unit, which is comprised of its managed infrastructure services other than hybrid cloud, into a new company by the end of next year. The new company, which is being called "NewCo" until a new brand is in place, provides technical support to more than 4,600 clients in 115 countries.

UK & EU funding in focus this week

The number of funding rounds in the UK & EU remains below pre-covid levels this week, with a total of $86.3 million.

Tech firms based in London accounted for over 54% of the funds raised, with Fintech gaining most investment

Company	Founded	Sector	City	Country	Funding $ Million	Series
Primer	2019	Fintech	London	UK	18.9	A
Metrikus	2019	Environment Software	London	UK	6.72	A
Weavr	2018	Fintech	London	UK	4	Seed
Vauban	2017	Fintech	London	UK	2.16	Seed
RevLifter	2017	Marketing Tech	London	UK	3.93	A
Quiqup	2014	Logistics	London	UK	5.5	B
TransferGo	2012	Fintech	London	UK	5.4
Powerup	2018	Cleanetch	Aulnay-sous- bois	France	6	A
GrAI Matter Labs	2016	AI Processing	Paris	France	14
Bigblue	2018	Logistics platform	Paris	France	3.6	Seed
Guuru	2016	SaaS	Zurich	Switzerland	5	A
Nodalview	2015	Property Tech	Brussels	Belgium	4.1	A
Cumul.io	2015	Analytics	Leuven	Belgium	4.2	A
Kinzen	2017	Mediatech	Dublin	Ireland	2.8	Seed

EU General Data Protection Regime

Data Protection & Privacy

EU General Data Protection Regime

Catchup

Global Reach

GDPR has global reach, any entity that collects or processes data on EU residents is subject to the regime

Fines

Fines for data breaches or non-compliance can be up to €20 million or 4% of global annual revenue which ever is the higher

Data Breach Reporting

Data Breaches must be reported within 72 hours to the data protection authority in the EU country where the Organisation is based or has its GDPR representative

EU Representative

A firm that does not have a base in the EU must appoint a European representative to act as its direct contact for data subjects and EU and EEA data supervisory authorities.

GDPR Fines Issued in November 2020

There were two significant GDPR fines issued in November.

In the United Kingdom, The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined the UK subsidiary of Ticketmaster, £1.25m ($1.69M) for failing to keep its customers' personal data secure. The ICO found that the company failed to put appropriate security measures in place to prevent a cyber-attack on a chat-bot installed on its online payment page

Telecoms company, Vodafone Italia has been fined €12.3m ( $14.8m) by the Italian data protection regulator Garante, for breaching personal data rules. The fine follows an investigation after the regulator received complaints from Italian consumers about unsolicited phone calls from Vodafone’s sale network as part of a telemarketing campaign

GDPR Fines – November 2020

		Sector	Country	Fine	GDPR Article	Detail
	Ticketmaster UK Limited	ecommerce	United Kingdom	£ 1,4m	Art. 5 (1) f), Art. 32 GDPR	Insufficient technical and organisational measures to ensure information security
	Carrefour France	Supermarkets	France	€ 2,25m	Articles 5 (1), 12, 13	Failed to sufficiently act upon customer requests to delete their data
	Carrefour Banque	Banking	France	€ 800k	Article 13	Information to be provided where personal data are collected from the data subject
	Miraclia Telecomunicaciones S.L	Telecoms	Spain	€40k	Articles 6, 13 and 14	Personal data was used without data subject consent
	Recambios Villalegre	Hotels	Spain	€ 12k	Article 6(1) and Article 13	Unlawfully published details of an individual, resulting in the unlawful processing.
	Vodafone España	Spain	Telecoms	€ 36k	Article 6(1)	Processed the personal data without legitimacy, as no contract had been concluded with data subject.
	Conseguridad SL	Spain	Secuirty	€ 50k	Article 31(1)(b)	Failure to appoint DPO
	Xfera Móviles, S.A	Spain	Telecoms	€ 20k	Article 31	Failure to respond to the request for provision of information.
	La Casa Comprometida S. Coop	Spain	Social enterprise	€ 3k	Article 13	Unlawful cookie practices
	Vodafone Italia S.p.A.	Italy	Telecoms	€ 12.2m	Articles 5(1) and (2), 6(1), 7, 15(1), 16, 21, 24, 25(1), 32, and 33	Serious violations in relation to the collection of consent and principles of accountability and Privacy by Design; inadequate security measures in relation to the clients management systems.

USA + EU Tech City Index – November 2020

With most of Europe back in lockdown, the number of people working from home has remained elevated. In terms of rental costs, as in a number of US cities, rents in Europe have seen a drop. With some parts of London seeing a 20% drop in rents for apartments in the month.

	City	Start Up Ecosystem Ranking	Office Activity – Covid	Co-working Desk Cost	Rental Cost – 2bd Apt USD
	London	2 [tied with NYC]	-51%	$344	3640
	New York	2 [tied with London]	-55%	$355	3850
	Silicon Valley	1	-65%	$511	4199
	Amsterdam	12	-34%	$214	2700
	Boston	5	-23%	$326	3062
	Seattle	9	-54%	$305	2685
	Berlin	16	-29%	$227	2100
	Austin, TX	19	-17%	$316	2033
	Dublin	36	-48%	$312	2500

USA + EU Salary Comparisons

	Silicon Valley	New York	Austin TX	London	Berlin	Dublin
Data Analytics Engineer	$167,231	135,908	$113,989	$95,832	$90,000	$90,497
Dev + Software Engineer	$178,097	$140,422	$127,195	$104,280	$87,298	$90,844