Bringing Legal and IT Teams Together on Technology Law Issues in West Africa
We recently delivered a four-day cross-company training program in Abidjan on technology law for professionals from IT and legal departments.
Organized in partnership with Stratec-Arc, a consulting firm active throughout West Africa, the program focused on several key legal issues arising in the management of digital projects, including IT contracts, intellectual property, software license audits, and emerging technologies.
Beyond the legal rules themselves, one of the main objectives was to help legal and IT teams better understand each other’s constraints and identify the key issues that should be addressed from the design and negotiation stages of technology projects.
A Legal Environment Conducive to Sharing Experience
The training held in Abidjan was particularly relevant given the historical links between the legal systems concerned.
Civil and business law in several West African countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, has been strongly influenced by the French civil law tradition. This shared legal background facilitates the exchange of experience and provides familiar legal concepts and reasoning, while still requiring careful consideration of national legislation and regional specificities.
In the technology sector, this comparative perspective is especially useful: projects are often cross-border, service providers may operate in several countries, and contracts are frequently negotiated in an international environment.
Bringing IT and Legal Departments Together
One of the key takeaways from the four-day program was the importance of developing a shared language between IT and legal teams.
IT teams understand system architecture, functionality, and operational constraints. Legal teams assess contractual commitments, liability, intellectual property rights, and regulatory requirements.
Successfully managing legal risk in a technology project depends on the ability to bring these two areas of expertise together.
A practical approach is therefore to involve legal teams early enough in IT projects, while also ensuring that lawyers have a sound understanding of the technical choices underlying the contracts they review and negotiate.
This training program was designed with precisely that objective in mind: to provide professionals with practical legal tools to help them anticipate risks arising from digital projects and better secure their contractual relationships.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Bénédicte DELEPORTE
Avocat
Deleporte Wentz Avocat
April 2023