COUR DE JUSTICE DE l'UNION EUROPÉENNE

and we “hope to be able to limit the negative consequences to the $7.1 trillion trans-atlantic economic relationship.”

Experts said the full impact on businesses will largely depend on how authorities respond.

“EU regulators will need to adopt a pragmatic approach to enforcement, allowing businesses a period of grace in which to implement alternative arrangements,” said Bridget Treacy, data privacy partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP in London.

Government surveillance of personal data is something the U.S. in its turn accuses China of doing through tech companies like Huawei. And it highlights the growing importance of data as the basis of modern business and politics.

Data drives much of the world’s largest companies, like Facebook, Google, Alibaba and Amazon, and is also prized for national security to prevent extremist attacks, for example. Mining large sets of people’s data has also become crucial to winning elections, such as the use of Facebook data for Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016.

Alexandre Roure, a senior manager at Computer & Communications Industry Association, said the decision “creates legal uncertainty for the thousands of large and small companies on both sides of the Atlantic that rely on

Privacy Shield for their daily commercial data transfers.

“We trust that EU and U.S. decision-makers will swiftly develop a sustainable solution, in line with EU law, to ensure the continuation of data flows which underpins the trans-atlantic economy.”