IT Law

The latest changes in taxation and the banking sector aimed at fighting offshores and tax avoidance have resulted in a requirement that is mandatory for most companies in order to be able to function normally: availability of a foreign office and staff.

Most banks will not even look at the application for account opening today if there is no evidence of the company having an actual office and personnel. And maintaining this office and personnel may be quite burdensome in terms of formalization and taxes.

Moreover, failing to consider all legal issues carefully while hiring staff members, you incur additional risks of losing customers or leakage of important confidential information when the employees leave.

SBSB’s team of experts will help your IT business establish and maintain an overseas office at a minimum cost and complying with the legislation. We offer a full package of services ranging from designing the overseas office concept in keeping with customer specifications to turnkey implementation, including legal and tax advice, execution of all necessary documents, management support and many more.

Selecting a country for an IT company incorporation is critical to launching an efficient business. Before making this tough choice, one should lay the groundwork and keep a multitude of factors in mind — global business goals, business scale and geography, admissible tax load, capacity to create and maintain substance, bank account opening and use conditions. Certainly the above-mentioned factors are just a few from among the ones one should pay attention to.

The cost of error in choosing the country for registering an IT company may be high and even cause project shutdown. If you intend to launch your own IT project, it is better not to try the do-it-yourself approach at the expense of your business and to refer to experts at once. SBSB will pick the most suitable solution tailored to your objectives.

Personal data are integral to any modern business. Companies operating online and companies dealing with EU customers or partners need to pay particular attention to data processing and use since those are stringently governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The above is relevant for any business domain, be that mainstream online stores and web portals, CRM systems or SaaS-based operations and cloud storage as any of them may collect or process personal data.

The EU personal data protection laws include a number of legislative instruments, however the GDPR is the most important regulation setting the rules for handling personal information. GDPR was designed to protect the rights of EU citizens and residents and is binding even outside its jurisdiction.

By ignoring the GDPR you will be constantly exposed to risk: having violated the GDPR rules concerning personal data treatment even with regard to a single EU citizen or resident, you may incur significant liability — a fine of up to 20 million euro, or even greater (should your company have substantial annual revenues).

Those engaged in the IT business should not delay addressing the issue of GDPR compliance — SBSB experts are there to adjust personal data handling processes and bring them to conformance with the GDPR requirements and the personal information protection laws.

Do you have an idea? We will help you bring it to life. Companies often have to deal with a multitude of challenging and cumbersome issues that are not connected with business growth, including review and negotiation of contracts, submission of tax returns and audited statements, counteragent due diligence, business accounting etc.

Those tasks are time-consuming, thus reducing your business’s efficiency and pace of development. A complete legal support offers a number of benefits: rapid task accomplishment, effective solutions for any issues, a sharp fixed price and guarantee of well-timed legal support.

We will be there to take care of all legal matters. Our offer covers full legal support of IT companies and startups, including: company incorporation, contract execution, tax advice, registration of trademarks, copyright protection and obtaining licenses and permissions, and much more.

Predictably, IT business is distinguished by high flexibility and mobility, thus offering multiple opportunities: remote customer services worldwide, no need for a physical office, easy manpower transfers and a huge selection of countries for company registration.

The above opportunities are evident; but IT companies have another benefit which many businessmen might fail to notice: the capacity to structure business transactions independently and determine their legal essence in one’s own discretion.

Seemingly similar operations (such as custom software development or remote services) can have a completely different essence and, therefore, involve different taxes and implications for the customer. How could one leverage this advantage for the IT business? The experts at SBSB will answer this and many other questions.

The operation of copyrighted and intellectual property items yields sizeable profits in the current business environment, and in IT business in particular. Hence, it is crucial to protect one’s intellectual property.

IT copyright is not restricted to contractual provisions guiding software development and also involves registration of the rights held by your company. By receiving a patent or registering the copyright, you obtain a protective document certifying the preemptive rights, authorship and title to the intellectual property item.

Offering international registration of trademarks and patents, we provide support with formalizing software copyright and give end-to-end guidance on all related issues. SBSB experts will be happy to advise you on any procedures and will assure maximum protection of your rights.

The number of new startups in the IT sector is growing increasingly. However only some of them manage to succeed.
Inventing a startup is not the only important thing; organizing it correctly from the legal viewpoint is essential, especially for startups intended for sale in the future and also for startups that would require additional investments to assure their successful implementation.

There are a number of options for adequate arrangement of startup investments.

Firstly, the investor may become one of the participants and make their contribution to the company’s authorized capital.

Secondly, one could raise investments for their startup through venture capital financing, namely by entering into a loan agreement granting the loan at an interest.

Besides, there is an option to conclude a strategic partnership agreement with the investor, thus consolidating the startup’s resources and the investor’s assets. The above techniques are just a few scenarios from the wide range of those available. We will help you get all legal matters right, proposing intelligent investment raising schemes for your project and highlighting all potential benefits and risks, and all of that in a short timeframe.

Reliable high-quality agreements are essential for entities operating via foreign companies. The following agreement types are the most widespread in the IT sector:

• software development agreements;
• non-disclosure agreements;
• software distribution agreements;
• licensing agreements.

The internet is full of various draft agreements, including those popular among IT companies. However, the agreements one may find online involve a number of underlying risks: they might be intended for use in other countries or drafted in keeping with outdated laws, they may not meet the interests or mission of your business etc.

With well-designed agreements, not only will you enhance your company image in the minds of your customers but also reduce dramatically the risks associated with payment delays at banks, implications of actions taken by unscrupulous clients or partners and so on. Entrusting SBSB experts with the development of a standard IT agreement package, you can count on the high quality of your agreements, full compliance with applicable laws and alignment with your best interests.

Setting up a bank account in an overseas jurisdiction is not an easy task for IT companies today. Guided by counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering rules, banks require IT companies to follow certain conditions that can be quite hard to comply with. Those include, but are not limited to, a complete disclosure of business structure and of the incomes and cash flows available, submission of various documents and explanations etc.

When choosing the country and bank for opening an account, we always consider not only the complexity of this process per se but also the bank’s service rates offered to non-residents, the incoming and outgoing payment currency, and a number of other essential aspects.

Customers often appreciate the option of setting up an account remotely when selecting the country of the account. We have been processing such requests for a long time now and will be happy to help you with this.

SBSB has a large partner network of banks and payment systems. We know which banks are better and more cost-efficient to work with, and which ones are not worth getting involved with. Prior to setting up your bank account, we will choose an appropriate jurisdiction for it, proceeding from the type of activities and turnovers of your business.

The IT business continues gaining momentum, and the question often arises: what is the best location for incorporating an IT company? To answer this question, one should first of all keep in mind the specifics of the particular business and also consider whether the company will conduct business in the country of registration, who will pay for the services, where the dividends, royalties and profit shares will be paid out and how investors are to be brought in. Further, one needs to be knowledgeable about the requirements for setting up accounts in the relevant country and business accounting requirements, and pay special attention to taxation matters.

TOP 6 countries for establishing an IT company are the USA, Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Georgia and UAE. Providing expert support to help you choose the jurisdiction for your future IT company, we will give an insight into all benefits and drawbacks of the feasible options and will have the firm registered in as short a time as possible.