Information and Communication Technologies Law

Dimitrov, Petrov & Co.’s lawyers teach ICT Law in premiere Bulgarian universities, train magistrates, police officers, attorneys, in-house lawyers, and state officials. They are often invited as visiting professors in leading international universities.

During the past years Dimitrov, Petrov & Co.’s lawyers have been actively involved in the establishment of the current ICT legal framework in Bulgaria. They have been frequently invited by various government bodies like the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Healthcare, Communications Regulation Commission, Bulgarian Accreditation Agency, Registry Agency, as well as by a number of professional and non-profit organizations to participate in the process of drafting legislative acts such as laws, ordinances and instructions. Such acts, inter alia, include: the Electronic Communications Act, the Electronic Commerce Act, the Electronic Governance Act, the Commercial Register Act, the amendments to the Electronic Document and Electronic Signature Act, the Consumer Protection Act (regarding the provision of information society services), the ordinances for the implementation of those legislative acts, instructions for working with electronic documents in the state administration, etc. Dimitrov, Petrov & Co.’s experts have also been actively involved in the elaboration of strategies of national importance such as the Strategy for the Implementation of e-Healthcare in Bulgaria, the Strategy for e-Government, the Policies and Standards for the Provision of e-Government Services for Citizens in view of the Implementation of the e-Government Strategy, the Strategy for Bulgaria’s Competitiveness on International ICT Markets, etc. Recently the experts of Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. were actively involved in the discussions and public consultation on the amendments of the Bulgarian Electronic Communications Act with view to the transposition of the latest EU directives in this area.

The firm has advised and represented the Bulgarian ICT business and its branch organizations in various negotiations with the government resulting in the elaboration of national strategies, enforcement of new legislation, establishment of PPP bodies and high-tech parks.

Dimitrov, Petrov & Co.’s experts have elaborated numerous studies in the field of e-signatures, e-documents, e-government, e-health, e-procurement, electronic payment instruments, data retention, ePSI, electronic identity management and the transposition of the EU legal framework into the Bulgarian legislation. Some of the tasks in this field as Study on Identity Theft Crimes, National Profile, 2010 and Preparatory Study on Rapid Information Exchange on Counterfeiting and Piracy: Country report BULGARIA, 2010 have been assigned by the European Commission. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) selected Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. as its national correspondent and assigned to the firm a study on data collection and storage in the EU in November 2011.

The lawyers from Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. have also advised Bulgarian companies and banks regarding the provision of specific services and the implementation of projects such as integration of e-health cards, e-submission of medical documentation for the purposes of health insurance, issuance of e-invoices, delivery and storage services, use of e-signatures for the purposes of e-banking services, etc.