Asian Business Law Institute

July 2025

The operations of multinational corporations (MNCs) often involve intra-group transactions. These transactions now include transfers of personal data. This is particularly so when a MNC centralises certain business functions (e.g., human resources, customer relationship management, payroll, finance and IT) in one entity for operational efficiency. With the widespread commercial availability of cloud solutions, centralisation of business functions is becoming increasingly common among groups of companies.

For MNCs that operate across multiple countries, differing national regulations governing data privacy can create legal barriers to transfers of personal data among a group of companies.

One solution to this problem in the European Union (EU) has been the development of Binding Corporate Rules. There is, however, no equivalent framework for agreements to facilitate data transfers between related entities in ASEAN which operates differently from the EU.

In this context and on the basis of the ASEAN Model Contractual Clauses for Cross Border Data Flows, the Asian Business Law Institute has developed a template intra-group agreement for cross-border transfers of personal data within ASEAN, focusing on facilitating regional intra-group transfers of personal data in relation to centralised business functions within that group, with a view to benefitting small and medium-sized enterprises with operations across ASEAN.