Our people

Niall O'Brien

Managing Associate, IP/IT Data Protection
Ireland

Expertise

Niall has extensive expertise in Data Privacy, Technology, and IP law processes. He has broad experience working across all areas of data protection and cybersecurity. Niall advises on complex technical local and global data protection issues, including drafting and negotiating commercial agreements, advising on M&A transactions, as well as providing advisory and strategy services on global privacy transformation projects. He is fluent in French having lived in France for 5 years where he worked in Airbus, Toulouse. Niall is a co-author of the second edition of Data Protection and Compliance (published by the British Computer Society).

Experience

Relevant experience includes:

American Based Global Creative and Media Agency: Advising an American based global creative and media agency on an agreement with a multinational confectionery, food, holding, beverage and snack food company in respect the GDPR compliance in the engagement.
Well known global payments company: Post-acquisition alignment of a privacy program for a well-known global payments company after it had acquired two other payments entities in the European market
Confidential client: Advising in relation to a data protection by design project in respect of biometric data and the treatment of a novel blood testing kit and how to prepare to bring this new product to market.
ICC Arbitration: Against a financial process automation solutions company in Ireland in relation to a dispute based on a distribution agreement for the provision of SaaS and the return of end-user data post contract termination.
Data Protection Commission: Commercial Court litigation relating international data transfers and an article 267 preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice on behalf of the Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Limited and Maximillian Schrems case (Schrems II).
In 2021 Niall co-authored the book Data Protection and Compliance: Second edition.

Publications