Impact of cybersecurity regulations on International Trade and Business Operations

This thesis examines how cybersecurity regulation shapes the way multinational companies operate across borders. In particular, it answers the question of how cybersecurity regulations differ in the European Union, the United States, and China and how these differences affect companies in practice. A case study of Accenture is used to illustrate how a multinational that operates across all three regions adapts its cybersecurity compliance strategy. The comparison shows that the three jurisdictions adopt very different approaches. The EU relies on strict, binding legal frameworks. The United States generally relies on voluntary standards. China treats cybersecurity primarily as a matter of national security. The findings show that Accenture adopts a hybrid compliance model that combines internationally recognised standards with region-specific adjustments. The main challenges it faces are overlapping regulations, conflicting rules on cross-border data transfers, and data localisation requirements that force infrastructure fragmentation. The thesis concludes that such a regulatory divergence inevitably pushes multinational companies toward more fragmented operations.