Matthew Chapman

Principal Associate

Practice areas

• Commercial and IT
• Commercial litigation
• Data centers
• IT dispute resolution
• Litigation and dispute management
• Privacy, data protection and cybersecurity
• Technology
• Technology, Media and Telecoms
• Telecoms

Practice notes

Matt is a Principal Associate in Eversheds Sutherland's litigation and dispute management team. The focus of his practice is complex disputes involving technology, communications and data. This includes two related areas of practice:

Technology and Communications: Matt resolves disputes in the technology and communications sectors, including in particular disputes arising from ICT contracting, joint ventures (and their termination), outsourced and managed IT services, data centres, software licencing, and software and hardware development.

Cybersecurity, data and information disputes: Matt regularly advises on contentious cybersecurity, data and information security issues and has particular experience in disputes relating to cybersecurity, data and information security, breach of confidence, misuse of private information, privacy and data- and system-security breaches.

Matt’s recent experience includes (by way of illustrative example):

• Regularly acting for global clients operating in both the private and public sectors on complex and high-value disputes involving large-scale, multi-party outsourced information and computer technology projects, whether toward litigation, arbitration or alternative dispute resolution.
• Advising clients across multiple sectors on the defence of claims in multiple jurisdictions arising from cyber-attacks, ransomware incidents and data security-breaches. Matt is regularly asked to provide strategic advice on cybersecurity, data, information security and privacy and has done so for clients in both the public and private sectors, as well as in the context of corporate insolvency.
• Acting for a global defence contractor on a multi-million GBP claim against a data centre operator arising from a service outage.
• Acting on behalf of a range of leading global and national clients on multijurisdictional cybersecurity, ransomware and data incident response, including legal proceedings against external suppliers; legal action against third parties and employees; urgent injunctive relief; and defence of data protection and privacy claims.
• Advising global and national public and private organisations (both for licensors and licensees) on multi-million GBP software licensing disputes.
• Acting for national and global organisations, across sectors including retail, corporate, education, healthcare, financial services and technology, on data breach and privacy litigation.

Matt is a member of the Society for Computers and Law and was described in Legal 500 2021 as being "proactive, responsive" and providing "advice beyond his years".