Regulatory and Compliance
Technology companies face substantial competition and consumer protection scrutiny, from merger review and platform conduct investigations to challenges over how products and services are marketed, priced, and sold. Sidley's Antitrust and Competition practice serves the technology industry globally, counseling software companies, e-commerce platforms, technology investors, fintech companies, consumer electronics companies, electronic manufacturing services, and network, cloud, and security services providers. Our team includes lawyers with senior leadership experience at the DOJ, FTC, and European Commission, giving clients insights into enforcers’ perspectives as we build strategies to defend their interests. With more than 70 antitrust lawyers across 12 offices worldwide, we advise on the full range of, competition, and consumer protection issues technology clients face and routinely advise on coordinated, cross-border mandates for clients facing overlapping scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions.
Sidley's Antitrust and Competition team brings to clients:
- Dedicated Technology Team: A team within our practice that is focused on the technology sector, from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. We advise clients on the industry's defining issues across jurisdictions, including monopolization and abuse of dominance matters involving self-preferencing, bundling, and tying; digital advertising and ad tech; heightened merger scrutiny for large technology transactions; and platform regulation such as the EU's Digital Markets Act and the UK's regime for firms with Strategic Market Status. We advise gatekeepers and other large platforms through the full lifecycle of these regimes, from designation and information requests through compliance and litigation strategy.
- Leadership on AI Issues: Sidley counsels global, industry-leading clients on the antitrust dimensions of AI transactions, including partnerships, minority investments, and other novel deal structures, as regulators worldwide increasingly scrutinize how these arrangements impact access to compute, models, and distribution. We represent clients in the most significant algorithmic pricing class actions across numerous industry sectors, counsel companies deploying AI-driven pricing and related tools on navigating this fast-emerging area of risk, and advise on EU AI Act compliance obligations for general-purpose AI models and high-risk AI systems, including engagement with the EU AI Office as its enforcement powers take effect.
- Integrated Consumer Protection Strength: For technology companies, competition and consumer protection issues increasingly arise together, often from the same regulators. Our practice guides clients through every stage of a consumer protection challenge globally, including compliance with online advertising, subscription, and e-commerce rules; defense of regulatory investigations; and litigation against enforcers, including the FTC, state enforcers, and private plaintiffs in the United States; and against obligations arising under the EU’s Digital Services Act and comparable regimes elsewhere.
- Global Deal, Investigations, and Sovereignty Strategy: We counsel technology clients through merger review across jurisdictions, including Second Request and Phase II investigations before agencies such as the FTC, DOJ, CMA, and European Commission, coordinating multi-jurisdictional clearance strategy for the largest and most complex technology transactions. We advise on the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation's implications for cross-border deal structuring and on dawn raid preparedness and response. As competition enforcement increasingly intersects with data localization, sovereign-cloud requirements, and investment screening, we help clients distinguish legitimate competition concerns from protectionist pressures and position sovereignty requirements as a commercial opportunity rather than a risk.
- Recognized Market Leadership: Our repeated success in high-profile and industry-shaping technology matters has helped our Antitrust and Competition team gain recognition as a leading practice by Chambers Global, Chambers Europe, Chambers UK, and Chambers USA, Legal 500 EMEA, Legal 500 UK, and Legal 500 USA; Global Competition Review's GCR 100; and Benchmark Litigation, among others, including 15 individual partner and senior counsel rankings in Chambers.
Technology companies operate in an environment shaped as much by Washington as by the market. It is more consequential — and more combative — than ever before. Sidley’s Government Strategies team helps leading technology companies navigate the legislative, regulatory, and political forces that define their business landscape, serving as their eyes and ears in Washington to ensure that emerging developments are understood well before bills pass or rules are written.
Our team is composed of former senior officials from Congress, the Executive Branch, and federal regulatory agencies, including alumni of congressional investigative committee staffs and lawyers holding the highest levels of security clearance. We combine the substantive rigor of an elite law firm with the political acumen of a premier advocacy practice and deliver results where it matters most.
For technology-sector clients, our work includes:
- High-Stakes Legislative and Regulatory Advocacy: Our team lobbies aggressively on behalf of technology clients on the issues that define their businesses, from data privacy, artificial intelligence, and platform regulation to cybersecurity, semiconductor policy, and foreign technology restrictions. We build coalitions, shape the legislative debate, and ensure our clients’ voices are heard by the policymakers who matter most.
- Congressional Investigations Defense: Technology companies — including social media platforms, internet advertisers, cryptocurrency firms, and defense contractors — are among the most frequent targets of congressional scrutiny. Our team has represented prominent technology companies and their executives in the most high-profile congressional inquiries, preparing witnesses for testimony, responding to subpoenas, managing committee relationships, and protecting clients from the collateral legal, regulatory, and reputational consequences that congressional investigations routinely generate.
- Strategic Government Advisory: We counsel technology clients on how to engage the federal government proactively — structuring their relationships with agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, FTC, FCC, DHS, and NSA, advising on how proposed rules and executive actions will affect their businesses, and developing strategies to shape policy outcomes before they are locked in. Our insider’s perspective, forged through years at the highest levels of government, gives clients a decisive edge.
As technology companies expand across borders, they face increasingly complex commercial and geopolitical disputes. At Sidley, we help technology companies anticipate, mitigate, and resolve international and multi-forum disputes with confidence, drawing on the strength of our interdisciplinary Global Tech platform.
Sidley’s Global Tech International Arbitration team brings to clients:
- Global Disputes Experience Across the Technology Sector: Sidley represents technology companies from across the industry — including AI, software, semiconductors, telecommunications, cloud computing, digital infrastructure, fintech, and life sciences technology — in high-stakes disputes arising from cross-border operations, strategic partnerships, licensing arrangements, joint ventures, supply chains, and other complex commercial relationships. We provide practical, business-focused advice designed to protect our clients’ commercial interests while minimizing business disruption.
- Leadership at the World’s Major Arbitral Hubs and International Tribunals: With leading practitioners based in New York, Washington, D.C., London, Geneva, Hong Kong, Singapore, and San Francisco, Sidley represents clients before every major arbitral institution and in proceedings before international courts and tribunals. Our globally integrated team combines deep advocacy experience with local market insight to manage complex disputes efficiently across jurisdictions.
- Comprehensive International Disputes Coverage: Sidley advises technology companies across the full spectrum of international disputes, including:
- international commercial arbitration;
- bilateral investment treaty arbitration;
- cross-border contract disputes;
- technology, licensing, and intellectual property disputes;
- investment treaty arbitration;
- joint venture and shareholder disputes;
- post-M&A and transaction-related disputes;
- supply chain and infrastructure disputes; and
- enforcement of arbitral awards and cross-border judgment proceedings.
- Integrated Strategic Counsel Across the Global Tech Platform: Our international arbitration and disputes lawyers work seamlessly with colleagues across our Global Tech platform — including Corporate, Intellectual Property, Cybersecurity and Data Privacy, AI, International Trade, Regulatory, and Government Strategies practices — to help technology companies identify and mitigate dispute risks, preserve commercial relationships where possible, and resolve their most significant cross-border disputes effectively.
Technology companies operate at the center of an increasingly complex global trade and national security landscape. At Sidley, we help technology companies navigate evolving trade regulations and geopolitical risks with confidence, drawing on the strength of our interdisciplinary Global Tech platform.
Sidley’s Global Tech International Trade team brings to clients:
- Deep Experience at the Intersection of Trade and Emerging Technology: Sidley advises companies at the forefront of AI, semiconductors, advanced computing, data centers, cloud infrastructure, and other critical technologies on the rapidly evolving export controls, sanctions, and national security measures shaping global markets. We provide strategic, practical guidance on the regulatory frameworks affecting the development, deployment, financing, and cross-border movement of cutting-edge technologies.
- Global National Security and Trade Capabilities: With leading practitioners across the United States, UK, EU, and APAC, Sidley helps technology companies navigate the expanding intersection of trade, investment, and national security. Our globally integrated team advises on evolving government restrictions, supply chain resilience, market access, and cross-border transactions, helping clients anticipate regulatory change and manage geopolitical risk wherever they operate.
- Comprehensive Trade and Regulatory Coverage: Sidley advises technology companies across the full spectrum of international trade matters, providing coordinated counsel on:
- export controls;
- economic sanctions;
- customs and tariff matters;
- trade remedies;
- foreign investment and national security reviews, including CFIUS and FDI regimes worldwide;
- WTO disputes and international trade litigation;
- supply chain risk, market access, and geopolitical compliance; and
- trade policy, regulatory developments, and government investigations.
- Integrated, Cross-Border Advice for the Technology Sector: Our international trade lawyers collaborate seamlessly with colleagues across our Global Tech platform — including Cybersecurity and Data Privacy, AI, Intellectual Property, Regulatory, Government Strategies, White Collar, and Corporate practices — to provide practical, business-focused advice for technology companies at every stage of growth, from emerging innovators to the world’s leading global technology enterprises.
The Privacy and Cybersecurity practice has been recognized by Law360 as a 2025 “Cybersecurity & Privacy Practice Group of the Year” and ranked among the elite by Chambers USA, Chambers Global, and the Lexology Data 100, Sidley’s Privacy and Cybersecurity team. The practice is a trusted partner for technology companies of all sizes — from pioneering startups to global Fortune 500 leaders — at every stage of their growth.
Technology companies are among the most frequent and high-profile targets of cyberattacks, data breaches, and privacy enforcement actions, and among the most consequential developers and deployers of the technologies that give rise to them. Sidley’s Privacy and Cybersecurity practice brings nearly three decades of experience to the full spectrum of technology-related privacy and data security challenges, providing technology clients with the integrated, multidisciplinary counsel they need to navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving legal landscape.
Our global team of privacy and cybersecurity lawyers advise technology clients across every critical infrastructure sector — from software, cloud computing, and semiconductors to digital health, e-commerce, and AI platforms — on matters ranging from proactive compliance and data governance to crisis response, government investigations, and complex litigation. We counsel clients on the development and deployment of artificial intelligence and generative AI systems, including the novel legal and regulatory concerns those technologies raise under privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, products liability, and consumer protection frameworks. Our team also advises on quantum computing preparedness, helping clients assess the implications of post-quantum cryptography for their systems and data protection strategies.
When incidents occur, our lawyers respond swiftly, managing multijurisdictional data breaches, engaging forensic providers, liaising with law enforcement, and guiding clients through notification and regulatory obligations under U.S. federal and state law, the GDPR, the EU AI Act, and other international regimes. We represent technology companies in class actions and regulatory enforcement proceedings brought by the FTC, SEC, state attorneys general, and EU and UK data protection authorities, and conduct internal investigations on behalf of boards of directors. Many of our lawyers have held senior positions at the federal government, intelligence community, and U.S. military, bringing firsthand regulatory and policy insight to every engagement.
Whether you are launching a new financial product, responding to a government investigation, or building a compliance program from the ground up, Sidley brings the depth, experience, and government insight that technology companies require.
Our industry-leading team has more than 130 compliance and enforcement lawyers, including dedicated associates, focused on securities and derivatives laws. We bring seasoned advocacy and practical judgment to every matter. More than two dozen former senior officials from the SEC, CFTC, FINRA, state, and international regulators offer clients a clear understanding of regulatory expectations, enforcement priorities, and how rules are applied in practice.
Our technology clients range from fintech platforms and crypto-native business to established software firms and digital marketplace operators. Our work for these clients includes:
- Digital Assets and Emerging Technology: As regulators sharpen their focus on new technologies, our team is at the forefront. Recent work includes advising on digital assets, prediction markets, and the evolving U.S. regulatory landscape, as well as representing clients in connection with tokenized securities and CFTC guidance on new financial products. We help technology companies understand where regulatory lines are drawn and how to operate confidently within them.
- Regulatory Counseling and Compliance: We advise technology companies at every stage: from product design and launch through registration, licensing, and ongoing compliance, with the full spectrum of securities and commodities regulations.
- Enforcement Defense: Sidley lawyers have represented high-profile clients in significant investigations involving financial services firms over the past two decades, including matters involving blockchain and other fintech issues. We defend technology companies and their executives in investigations brought by the SEC, CFTC, DOJ, state attorneys general, FINRA, and international regulators. We assist clients in conducting internal investigations to uncover facts needed to evaluate potential regulatory exposure, then counsel clients on remedial, disciplinary, and reporting steps that will put them in the best position when facing regulatory scrutiny.
- Cross-Border Matters: Technology companies rarely operate within a single jurisdiction. Sidley’s global platform delivers coordinated counsel across the world’s major financial markets, whether navigating a multi-regulator investigation, structuring a cross-border transaction, or ensuring compliance with overlapping international requirements. With more than 100 lawyers who have held senior positions within key regulatory agencies globally, we provide the insider’s perspective technology companies need as they expand into new markets, launch products, and manage regulatory risk across borders.
Learn more about our Securities Enforcement and Regulatory practice.