Outsourcing Law & Business Journal™ – December 2011

1.  Korea as a Service Delivery Center After US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). President Barack Obama signed the Korean-U.S. Foreign Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) on October 21, 2011 and it was ratified by Korea’s National Assembly on November 22, 2011.  It is now in force.

Separate from the generally applicable multilateral obligations of the two countries under WTO trade agreements, the KORUS FTA opens new doors for service providers in Korea to compete with India, Latin America, Canada and other locations for contracts to deliver data processing and BPO services to U.S. customers.   While Korea’s wage levels are comparatively high relative to other destinations, Korea can be expected to compete effectively in niche areas such as banking, finance, insurance and manufacturing support services.

What’s new, beyond the multilateral free-trade framework under the WTO, NAFTA and the EU, compared to other U.S. bilateral free-trade agreements?  The KORUS FTA offers a few embellishments on the concept of admitting individuals for specific FTA-qualified visa categories (as under NAFTA).  The KORUS FTA adds specific protections for conducting services businesses generally, including professional services licensure (lawyers, doctors, engineers, like NAFTA’s list).  The agreement covers the “electronic supply of services,” “digital products,” electronic authentication, e-signatures and e-documents as instruments of bilateral e-commerce.  Most significantly, the KORUS FTA hints at a new paradigm for bilateral FTA’s since it includes the principle that privacy laws will not be used for protectionism.  For more, click here.

2.  Humor.

FTA, n. (1) in public international law, intergovernmental convention designed to displace educated, skilled, local workers with educable foreign skilled workers, and/or substitute local goods with foreign goods, all for the benefit of the local populace first and “terms of trade” second; (2) fun-time agreement; (3) free trade agreement.

Privacy, n. (1) constitutional right against unwarranted intrusion by government, advertisers, supplicants and other pests; (2) what’s left of your personally identifiable data (including personal health information) after blogging, social media, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, web click monitoring and nanny-cams; (3) what your politicians are eager to protect after they publish information to protect others from your marauding and opprobrious conduct such as driving a vehicle, owning a home, practicing a regulated profession, contributing to a political campaign, borrowing money and other vices; (4) rule honored by the breach.

3.  Conferences.

December 12-14, 2011, IQPC presents its 12th e-Discovery Summit and Roundtable, New York, New York. The 12th eDiscovery conference will provide strategies for eDiscovery professionals to minimize costs, risks and challenges with eDiscovery.  Here, you will have a cross industry gathering of eDiscovery professionals to provide you with the essentials to understand the risks, challenges and opportunities eDiscovery pose, learn best practices from private sector and government e-discovery specialists, ask questions and gain invaluable knowledge to upgrade your skills and build winning strategies and network with colleagues, share challenges, make career connections.  To register, visit their website.

March 7-9, 2012, 16th Annual North American Shared Services & Outsourcing Week, Orlando, Florida. In 2011 we brought you the ‘revolution’ of shared services – 2012 is all about delivering The Next Level of Value by Accelerating Global Growth & Delivering Business Insights to the Board. Over 100 thought leaders and companies including AOL, Volvo, Deloitte, DHL, Monster.com, Salsesforce.com, Hyatt, Molson Coors, Philips, BAE Systems, Intel, Perason, BP, P&G, UBS, Citigroup, WPP Group, Yahoo!, DHL and HP will present their inspiring talks and roundtables to drive global growth and root shared services firmly into the boardroom agenda.  If you want to challenge your captive and outsourced operations to influence business outcomes, or endorse the IMPACT shared services can have on the success and progress of a business as a whole, then this event is a must attend for you.  To register, visit their website.

March 15, 2012, Global Services Conference 2012, New York, New York. Global Services Conference 2012 will focus on how to build and sustain excellence in services. This strategy is the key to enterprise services, enterprise transformation, and aligning that transformation to drive competitive advantage to companies. Companies are looking to access data and knowledge in a better way and to leverage the maturity of the services organization that has been in place to drive better business value.  For more information, visit their website.