Public Procurement and Vendor Lock-in within the Area of Data Migration

Abstract

This article is devoted to analyzing the extent to which the existing instruments from directly applicable EU legislation within the fields of free flow of non-personal data, personal data protection, and competition law are effective in addressing vendor lock-in in public procurement within the area of data migration. Although there are ways to reduce the risk of occurrence of vendor lock-in, this problem still arises. Therefore, it is appropriate to examine ex post measures to address it. The article aims, in particular, to fill the gap in the literature in a way that can be used in practice (especially in the practice of the contracting authorities) and to add something new to the current state of the art by focusing on measures and legislation not having public procurement as their main regulatory subject. The three chosen regimes of general and direct applicability ensure that the lessons learned can also be applied to the very narrow context of data migration issues. The article uses practical examples to illustrate effectiveness and is written such that future research may use the observations made herein as a basis when assessing the need for the amendment of existing legislation.

Keywords

• public procurement
• vendor lock-in
• data migration