What digital sovereignty? How a Canadian Court is forcing a French company to break French law (youtube.com)
Demanding a company that had operations in France and Canada to hand over data from both locations, or that was stored in France, to UK and Australia.
The Canadian SC is ordering a French company to do something that would violate a French law that protect France's data sovereignty.
The issue wasn't so much Canada ordering the Canadian base of the French company, but ordering the French part to do something with the data stored in France.
OVH Parent has a ‘virtual presense’ in Canada, and based on the Brecknell case and some following it, a virtual presense is enough.
Part of it was that the company presents itself (on its website) as a unified global business' and therefore is sufficiently connected to Canada.
Another part of this case is that the French law in question is often treated as an ‘empty vessel,’ ie when it is broken (perhaps frequently), it is not prosecuted, and the sense is ‘Yep, it’s a law, but let's largely ignore it.'
Another part is that these large multinational companies, like Craigslist in another relevant case, are not present during parts of the trials. It's the police and the prosecution arguing for jurisdiction.
If these Canadian police arrived at the parent company in France to serve a warrant they'd ‘likely be arrested for tresspassing.’ These trials perhaps proceed only because they're done outside of the country they try to effect.
‘A key principle of international law as applied in Canada is that Canadian law does not operate extraterritorially outside of Canada, unless Parliament explicitly provides for it.’ Enforcement jurisdiction. The difference between an order and a request. Offend other country's sovereignty.
'Court treats ordinary corporate structure as a legal fiction.' By treating OVH as essentially one company. ?
Calling yourself a ‘global’ company is not a legal admission of control, it is simply marketing, he says.
Corporate separateness (from legal persons) is generally only disregarded where there is an actual fraud going on.
OVH in this case is not suspected of any crime. It simply is believed to maybe have records about someone that may be relavant to a Canadian investigation.