Sam O’Neill

Associate
About

Sam is an Associate in our Intellectual Property & Technology practice group. He advises public and private sector clients on a broad range of technology transactions and data protection matters; and has a primary focus on advising clients on the procurement of complex and business-critical IT systems and services from large technology vendors, and IT-related outsourcings and managed services arrangements.

Sam’s range of technology experience includes advising clients on: hardware and software procurements; all types of cloud services arrangements (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS); software development services (including both agile and waterfall methodologies); systems integration services; IT-related outsourcings and managed services arrangements; and open-source software issues. He also has significant experience advising clients on compliance with the data protection laws and regulations of the UK, Europe and the UAE (including the DIFC and ADGM).

Professional QualificationsSolicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales

EXPERIENCE

  • Advising the largest mobile network operator in Africa on its strategic alliance agreement with Microsoft, which included a multi-million-dollar cloud migration project whereby the IT and networking workloads of more than 21 companies in the group will be migrated to Azure.
  • Advising a UAE government ministry on the procurement of various IT systems and services, including the procurement and implementation of two state-of-the-art SAP-based systems to be used by the ministry to administer its regulatory responsibilities.
  • Advising a leading UK book retailer on the acquisition of new business-critical cloud-hosted IT systems for its product ordering and delivery processes.*
  • Advising a leading bank on the procurement of its core banking IT system from a specialist provider of software solutions to the banking, building society and lending sectors.*
  • Advising an NHS Trust on the supply of its proprietary genomics data management software to genomic laboratory hubs across the UK.*
  • Advising an electronic trading platform operator on outsourcing the hosting, operation, support and maintenance of its platform, and the licensing of the underlying technology for the platform to third party trading platforms.*
  • Advising an award-winning artificial intelligence company on the supply of its proprietary natural language processing technology to various customers, including one of the largest healthcare companies in the world; and the co-development of a conversational AI assistant solution customised for the debt collections industry.*
  • Advising a fast-growing IT infrastructure provider on the supply of CISCO-based IT, communications and IoT services to a multinational manufacturing company.*
  • Advising a leading cleantech company specialising in automated connection and electrification systems on various high-value agreements for the provision of its systems to ports and airports around the world.*
  • Advising a broad range of clients on data security and data protection compliance matters in respect of the UK GDPR, EU GDPR, UAE’s Personal Data Protection Law, DIFC’s Data Protection Law and ADGM’s Data Protection Regulations, as well as the sectoral data protection rules and regulations that apply in the UAE’s banking, healthcare and telecommunications sectors.

* Denotes experience prior to DLA Piper

Education
  • BPP Law School, LPC, 2017
  • Leeds Beckett University, Law LLB, 2015

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