Brexit: No Announcement of Deal or No Deal

Last week, it was stated that the EU and UK would give themselves until Sunday 13 December to agree a Brexit free trade deal.

However, no announcement yet has been made about whether a deal will be reached or not. An announcement is expected in the coming days though, it has to be said, they have been saying this for months!

Regardless of whether there is a deal or not, an agreement between the EU and UK regarding data adequacy is currently being treated as a separate technical issue. This means that talks on data adequacy can continue between the UK and EU, and a decision can still be reached by 31 December, or even afterwards, if it appears an adequacy agreement is possible.

This means even if a no-deal is announced, all is not lost for data adequacy. But, we still can't say an adequacy deal is likely, as recent developments would suggest.

In the meantime, you should familiarise yourself with the DMA’s Brexit Toolkit, which has information about all methods of data transfer, regardless of whether a deal is reached or not.

You can also find this information and more by listening back to the DMA Policy and Legal team’s recent webinar on Brexit and data flows.

The fact that the issue of data flows has not been scuppered by the lack of a Brexit deal is testament to the hard work of the DMA and industry partners. We have put enormous effort in over the last several years to impress upon the UK Government how serious the issue is for the success of the data and marketing industry. We will continue to push hard to ensure the industry’s interests are heeded in the weeks and months ahead.

For questions on the impact of these developments on your organisation, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the DMA’s Policy team.