SCL 5th Annual Conference: IT Project Procurement & Outsourcing

August 31, 2005

IT project agreements and marriage have a strikingly common purpose. Both arrangements are designed to instil confidence that your chosen partner is making a positive long-term commitment and, if it all goes wrong, there are rules in place to reduce the potential harm caused. Without this confidence, relationships can founder in the face of continual disputes.

So how should you structure agreements that inspire trust and confidence between the parties? What lessons can be learnt from the past? And how can you minimise the inherent risks to prevent costly and, sometimes highly visible, project failures?

The fifth SCL Annual Conference will provide many of the answers. It will help you, whether you are acting for a purchaser or supplier, understand the dynamics of the IT project lifecycle so that the agreed structures and contracts will stand up to the inevitable pressures. Over two days, a series of focussed presentations and panel sessions, led by leading industry experts from in-house and private practice, will analyse the key issues arising from the courtship of finding a supplier, through the engagement of negotiating terms to the considerations of relationship breakdown and exit strategies.

What makes this Conference different?

Developing expertise in this cutting edge area of legal practice requires a pooling of knowledge from all the parties involved. The SCL Conference provides a forum to achieve this: in place of the standard lecture format, the Conference will feature a series of hands-on, structured panel sessions.

Each panel session will feature short presentations by panel members setting out the key topics to be considered from both customer and supplier viewpoints. The panel will then analyse each point with the help of contributions and questions from you, the delegate. This approach will ensure that each session will be lively and you will benefit from the shared knowledge and experience of the panellists and other delegates.

Why you should attend

– Meet, learn and discuss the issues with leading industry experts

– Intensive, interactive format will ensure practical discussion of new concepts and ideas

– Two day Conference provides more time to debate and network with your peers

– Excellent value for money with 7.5 hours CPD, notes, accommodation and dinner included

– Delightful central Oxford location in the prestigious Randolph Hotel.

Speakers

The Panel Convenors are Clive Davies, Partner, Olswang, Co-Editor of Communications Law, Kit Burden, Partner in the Technology Media and Telecoms Department at DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, Bill Jones, Partner in the Technology Group, Wragge & Co, Jonathan Smith, Deputy Group Counsel and Head of Intellectual Property at Fujitsu Services and John Yates, Chief Executive of technology law firm v-lex. Expert Panellists at the event are expected to include Roger Bickerstaff, Partner, Joint Head of IT Sector Group at Bird and Bird, Andrew Foster, Group Special Projects Lawyer at Serco Group plc, Clive Freedman, FCIArb, FBCS, CEDR Registered Mediator, Barrister, 3 Verulam Buildings, Rory Graham, Partner, Baker & Mckenzie LLP, Paul Lanzone, Director, Legal Counsel, UBS Investment Bank, Martin McCloskey, Commercial Director, Capita Business Services Limited, Andy MacNaughton, Group Commercial Director and Managing Director EMEA, Fujitsu Services, Alistair Maughan, Partner, Morrison Foerster LLP, Harry Small, Partner, Baker & McKenzie LLP, Mark Smith, Attorney, Convergys and Toni Vitale, Senior Counsel, IBM United Kingdom Limited.

The Conference will be chaired by Richard Stephens, Solicitor, Chairman of the Society for Computers & Law and there will be a special guest speaker at the Dinner: Richard Christou, the Chairman of Fujitsu Services.