Q&A: Zach Song discusses cybersecurity in construction projects

Market pulseNews Zachary Song, a partner at Steptoe based in New York Zachary Song is a partner at Steptoe in New York and a panellist at this year’s Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA) conference for the day two session on “Cybersecurity, Data Integrity, and Real-Time Dispute Resolution in International Construction Projects” on 27 February. Song, an international arbitration lawyer involved in construction industry disputes, shares his thoughts on issues in this area. India Business Law Journal: What are the disputes related to cybersecurity and data that you see hold importance in jurisprudence? Song: When you think of cybersecurity, one would think a breach is required to hold somebody liable, but that’s not necessarily true. Cybersecurity, in a way, is a compliance issue. There are technical standards that need to be met. Hence, non-compliance can give rise to all sorts of claims by even third parties, and you see it a lot in government-related contracts. For example, in 2020, there was an instance where there was a data breach at a financial institution impacting the users’ data. In the government’s investigation, it was revealed that the company was not compliant with its own cybersecurity standards. Ultimately, they were fined somewhere around USD8 billion. Since then, the standards have become more rigid. In 2024, a US university tried to perform defence and Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) contracts. A whistleblower, who was a contractual par...