Legal & Regulatory Matters: A Year in Review with Andrés Fígoli*
Legal & Regulatory Matters: A Year in Review with Andrés Fígoli*
* The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the author’s current or former employers, affiliated organizations, or consulting or advisory clients.
The year 2026 has confirmed that submarine cables can no longer be considered solely as telecommunications infrastructure. Their growing importance for national security, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, financial services and the digital economy has brought them to the attention of an increasingly broad range of government agencies, regulators and international organisations.
This attention is welcome. However, it also creates a new challenge. Resilience, security, competition, environmental protection and digital sovereignty are legitimate policy objectives, but measures adopted to pursue them do not necessarily point in the same direction. A security requirement may restrict suppliers; a lengthy authorization may delay a repair; an accelerated permitting procedure may unintentionally favour established cable owners; and greater regulatory transparency may conflict with the confidentiality required to protect critical infrastructure.
The regulatory challenge emerging in 2026 is therefore no longer simply whether submarine cables should receive greater protection. It is how different public policy objectives can be pursued without undermining the resilience they are intended to strengthen.
Resilience Continues to Matter
Resilience has moved decisively from industry discussions into public policy. In January 2026, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN, 2026) endorsed its Enhanced Guidelines for Strengthening Resilience and Repair of Submarine Cables, an update of the version released some years ago that enabled many regional countries to update their legal frameworks.
By February 2026, the European Commission published its Submarine Cable Security Toolbox and Cable Projects of European Interest report (European Commission, 2026). Rather than introducing new regulatory obligations, the focus shifted towards implementation through financial support, coordinated risk management and the development of strategic infrastructure.
Accordingly, the Commission announced an additional €347 million in funding for submarine cable initiatives during 2026–2027, supporting projects aimed at increasing route diversity, resilience, repair capabilities and SMART cable technologies. In parallel to this, the EU also established two Regional Cable Hubs, in Finland and Italy, intended to improve regional coordination, incident response, information sharing and preparedness for future cable disruptions, with their main focus being on geopolitical risks.
At the global level, the International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience, jointly established by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), completed its two-year mandate.
During its session held in Porto, Portugal on 2 February 2026, the Advisory Body approved the recommendations developed by its three Working Groups: (i) Timely Deployment and Repair; (ii) Risk Identification, Monitoring and Mitigation; and (iii) Fostering Connectivity and Geographic Diversity. Together, these recommendations covered a broad range of legal, regulatory, and operational issues affecting submarine cable resilience.
On 10 July 2026, the Advisory Body subsequently approved the final Working Groups Report (International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience, 2026), which further expanded those recommendations by documenting best practices, practical experiences and regulatory approaches from around the world. The Report provides governments, regulators, industry and international organisations with a practical roadmap for strengthening submarine cable resilience while respecting their respective mandates and national circumstances.
The Advisory Body's greatest achievement was not simply the publication of its report, but the broad international consensus it succeeded in building. Through three Working Groups involving more than 160 participants from governments industry, international organisations and academia, representatives of major maritime, telecommunications and digital players – many of whom hold different regulatory traditions, commercial interests and geopolitical perspectives – worked together to develop a common set of recommendations on submarine cable resilience.
In an increasingly fragmented international environment, reaching agreement on practical recommendations for critical digital infrastructure is itself a significant accomplishment. The recommendations are not the product of a single government or industry sector, but reflect a carefully negotiated balance among stakeholders with different priorities and perspectives.
Market Sustainability and Competition
The transformation of cable ownership continued during 2026. Hyperscalers have evolved from major purchasers of international bandwidth into some of the world's largest investors in submarine cable infrastructure. Their investment has contributed enormous new capacity and accelerated technological development. At the same time, the increasing integration of submarine cables, cloud platforms, data centres and artificial intelligence infrastructure has also increased regulatory attention to the long-term structure of the subsea connectivity market.
National regulators are therefore assessing not only whether individual security measures are justified, but also their cumulative effect on competition and market entry. This question is particularly important because the economics of submarine capacity are changing. Where the largest generators of international traffic increasingly transport that traffic through their own infrastructure, traditional telecommunications companies may lose important customers that historically helped support investment in shared systems.
Competition authorities themselves are also adapting to increasingly complex and fast-moving digital markets. Recent enforcement trends (A&O Shearman, 2026) across industries show growing use of so-called "soft enforcement" tools alongside traditional fines and structural remedies. Anti-trust watchdogs are increasingly combining traditional enforcement tools with regulatory dialogue, behavioural commitments, market studies, data science and digital forensic techniques.
Some authorities are also exploring the use of artificial intelligence in competition enforcement. For example, Spain's National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) has continued developing AI-based tools to identify bid-rigging patterns and detect potential algorithmic collusion in public procurement.
Authorities continue to impose significant fines, structural remedies and, where appropriate, less traditional sanctions such as procurement bans, disgorgement of illicit gains and other corrective measures. Hard sanctions remain the principal response.
Regulatory Visibility and Digital Sovereignty
Several governments recognised during 2026 that resilience depends not only on physical infrastructure, but also on regulatory visibility over who owns, controls and operates submarine cable systems.
Modern cable ownership structures are also challenging traditional licensing models. Cable landing agreements have become increasingly common in many jurisdictions, including those whose telecommunications legislation neither expressly contemplated nor prohibited such arrangements. Under these structures, an international cable owner may rely on a locally licensed telecommunications operator to obtain the cable landing permit, own the portion of the cable located within national jurisdiction, and provide access to the cable landing station, while the international investor retains ownership or long-term rights over the remainder of the submarine system.
As a result, the entity identified in the landing licence does not necessarily reveal who effectively owns, finances or economically controls the international cable system. In many cases, the licensed landing party is responsible only for the domestic segment, whereas ownership and operational control over the vast majority of the system – including the wet plant extending through the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), continental shelf and high seas – remain with one or more international major investors.
Ownership of the wet plant, fibre pairs, spectrum, terminal equipment and landing infrastructure may be distributed among several entities. Long-term Indefeasible Rights of Use (IRUs) can further separate legal ownership from effective commercial control of capacity. For national authorities, this creates a potential regulatory visibility gap. These ownership structures may require authorities to consider information beyond that contained in the formal landing licence, including ownership, capacity allocation, operational responsibility and restoration arrangements. Regulatory approaches to obtaining such information vary among jurisdictions and may include licensing and disclosure requirements.
Several national initiatives during 2026 illustrate how governments are moving beyond general policy statements towards more operational approaches to submarine cable governance. In the United States, the FCC's Second Report and Order (Federal Communications Commission, 2026) expanded the regulatory framework to cover new aspects of cable security and operation. Elsewhere, countries have focused on identifying practical regulatory and operational gaps rather than introducing immediate legislative reforms or further treaties (Pedrozo, 2025).
Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), for example, launched a broad public consultation (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações, 2026) examining potential regulatory gaps affecting submarine cables, including governance, cybersecurity, incident reporting, geographic diversity, investment incentives and repair capabilities. The consultation is expected to support a Regulatory Impact Assessment and may ultimately lead to new regulatory measures by the end of 2026.
One issue attracting increasing attention is repair preparedness. The Atlantic Ocean, despite hosting a rapidly growing number of submarine cable systems, continues to be served by a limited number of maintenance agreements covering vast geographical areas that have expanded well beyond the assumptions under which they were originally established. Brazil illustrates this challenge. Although geographically nearly as big as the whole of Europe and hosting more than fifteen international submarine cable systems, the country currently has no submarine cable repair depot, requiring repair vessels to obtain spare cable and equipment from facilities located elsewhere in the Atlantic.
Japan reached similar conclusions from a different perspective. Following a comprehensive review of its submarine cable resilience (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2026), by July of this year the Japanese Government had recommended measures to strengthen route diversity, improve the geographic distribution of cable landing stations, enhance domestic repair capabilities and establish additional cable depots to reduce the transit time of repair vessels to damaged systems. Rather than concentrating exclusively on prevention, the report recognises that rapid restoration capability constitutes an equally important component of national resilience.
The report also highlights the need to modernise Japan's legal framework. It recommends revising the Wired Telecommunications Act of 1953 to reflect today's submarine cable ecosystem by clarifying the obligations of emerging categories of cable owners, expanding notification requirements for the installation, modification and operation of cable systems, and strengthening enforcement mechanisms for non-compliance. More broadly, the recommendation recognises that legislation drafted for an earlier generation of telecommunications infrastructure may no longer adequately reflect the ownership structures, technologies and resilience challenges of modern submarine cable networks.
Indonesia adopted a different approach. Rather than introducing new substantive licensing rules, a decree (Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 2026) fundamentally reorganised the governance of submarine cables and pipelines by establishing a National Team for the Management of Submarine Cable and Pipeline Operations. The new framework brings together the numerous ministries and government agencies involved in submarine cable matters under a single ministerially chaired coordination structure, with responsibility for synchronising policies and programmes, resolving inter-agency issues and formulating recommendations on the management of submarine cable and pipeline operations.
The reform does not eliminate the statutory powers of the participating authorities. Instead, it creates a formal coordination mechanism through which agencies continue exercising their respective mandates while aligning their decisions within a common institutional framework. The framework is intended to facilitate coordination among the multiple competent authorities involved in submarine cable deployment.
For countries where submarine cable permitting involves telecommunications regulators, maritime administrations, environmental authorities, defence agencies, customs, fisheries and port authorities, Indonesia's model illustrates an approach based on institutional coordination without comprehensive legislative reform.
Qatar focused on a different aspect of submarine cable regulation: ensuring transparent and non-discriminatory access to international connectivity infrastructure. A decision by the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA, 2026) introduced a comprehensive regulatory framework governing access to submarine cable landing station (SCLS) international connectivity services.
The new regime requires licensed operators of submarine cable landing stations to prepare CRA-approved Offers of Access describing the services available, applicable charges and the terms and conditions under which access will be provided. Once approved, these offers must be published, replacing the traditional reliance on individually negotiated commercial arrangements with a more transparent and predictable regulatory framework, covering a broad range of associated services, including colocation, cross-connections, backhaul facilities and managed services.
This illustrates a broader regulatory focus that now extends beyond cable landings to include access to cable infrastructure.
Other jurisdictions are also reviewing their legal frameworks, although many initiatives remain at the proposal or consultation stage. In the European Union, discussions continue on extending the scope of the NIS2 framework to encompass the entire submarine cable ecosystem, beyond traditional telecommunications operators, as part of the broader effort to strengthen the cybersecurity and resilience of critical digital infrastructure. Regulators are no longer regulating submarine cables in isolation. They are regulating the ecosystem surrounding submarine cables.
In the United Kingdom, the Government announced plans to consult on legislation introducing tougher criminal penalties for those who damage submarine telecommunications infrastructure, together with additional security obligations for cable operators and emergency intervention powers. Thailand and several other countries are likewise reviewing their regulatory frameworks in light of increasing concerns over resilience and critical infrastructure protection.
A recent example is Malaysia's Exclusive Economic Zone Regulations 2026 (Malaysia, 2026), which criminalise the breaking or damaging of submarine cables within its EEZ or continental shelf and allow marine sensitive areas to be designated where activities may be restricted to protect marine structures, including submarine cables.
In this sense, Recommendation 1 of International Advisory Body Working Group 2 emphasises the systematic collection and analysis of reliable submarine cable incident data to support evidence-based regulatory approaches. In this context, reported global submarine cable faults declined from more than 200 in 2024 to 176 in 2025 (Palmer-Felgate, 2026).
Maritime Prevention and International Cooperation
Despite growing attention to intentional interference, traditional maritime activities continue to represent the principal source of submarine cable damage. This has also increased cooperation between the telecommunications and maritime communities.
The 2026 report of the International Advisory Body includes several recommendations aimed at improving prevention through existing maritime frameworks. One of these recommendations concerns awareness of submarine telecommunications cables within maritime training. It was suggested that cable-related considerations could be incorporated into existing training frameworks under the IMO International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), rather than creating an entirely separate training regime.
Another recommendation concerns anchor stowage. Improperly secured or unintentionally deployed anchors can cause substantial cable damage. Verification of appropriate anchor stowage and securing arrangements through existing flag-State and Port State Control procedures could therefore provide a relatively straightforward preventive measure.
All these recommendations, together with others contained in the report, are expected to be considered by the IMO Maritime Safety Committee at its December 2026 session. Depending on the Committee's deliberations, they may subsequently be referred to the relevant IMO sub-committees for further consideration during 2027.
Hydrographic information also plays a critical role in prevention. Consistent implementation of International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recommendations on charting and cautionary notes can reduce risks from anchoring, fishing and dredging activities. Looking ahead, the transition to the S-100 digital hydrographic framework, launched early this year and which will be mandatory by 2029, may create new opportunities for prevention through enhanced electronic navigation. In particular, the digital navigation systems that are progressively replacing traditional paper charts aboard commercial vessels could eventually incorporate automated alerts when vessel behaviour indicates seabed-interaction activities near submarine cable routes.
Such functionality would be particularly valuable for bottom-trawling operations, where cable chart layers may not always be actively displayed in order to reduce screen clutter, and for other seabed-interaction activities such as the recovery of lost fishing gear. Rather than relying solely on the operator to activate specific chart layers, behavioural alerts based on vessel speed, course or operational patterns could provide an additional layer of protection. As the IHO's S-100 standards become operational, further discussions within the IMO may be expected on how such capabilities could be incorporated into future navigational guidance, complementing existing IHO recommendations and strengthening the prevention of accidental cable damage.
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) also witnessed significant developments during 2026. The protection of submarine telecommunications cables also remained under consideration in the ongoing ISA negotiations on the Mining Code. A Friends of the President Group, facilitated by Singapore, continued discussions on draft regulations addressing the accommodation of exploitation activities in the Area and the protection of submarine cables and pipelines.
In this evolving legal environment, developers of future submarine cable systems crossing areas beyond national jurisdiction – referred to under UNCLOS as "the Area" –may increasingly need to engage not only with coastal States where cables land, but also with the broader international regulatory framework and stakeholders whose activities may overlap in the Area, in order to minimise future legal and operational uncertainties.
While consensus has not yet been reached, discussions focused on the obligations of mining contractors to minimise the risk of cable damage, the exchange of information between stakeholders, and the appropriate institutional role of the ISA. These discussions are expected to continue as work on the Mining Code progresses.
Sustainability and Environmental Regulation
Sustainability is emerging as one of the newest regulatory dimensions affecting submarine telecommunications infrastructure. Traditionally, environmental assessments focused primarily on the direct impacts of submarine cable installation and operation. Increasingly, however, national regulators are taking a broader view, considering the wider digital ecosystem that submarine cables enable, including hyperscale data centres, artificial intelligence infrastructure, electricity demand, water availability, maritime decarbonisation and environmental monitoring.
As a result, submarine cable policy is progressively becoming integrated with energy, environmental and industrial policy, rather than being treated as a standalone telecommunications matter. A similar evolution may eventually emerge in financial markets. As investment in AI infrastructure expands beyond chips and data centres to encompass the broader digital ecosystem, emerging financing models such as so-called "circular financing" could increasingly place associated infrastructure, including submarine cable systems, within investors' strategic focus.
Environmental considerations are also becoming more complex. The environmental footprint of a submarine telecommunications cable itself is generally limited, particularly during its operational life. However, new subsea cable systems are increasingly promoted as catalysts for much larger digital ecosystems, including hyperscale data centres, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence facilities.
Where new cable systems are associated with the development of larger digital ecosystems, environmental permitting processes may increasingly consider interactions with related infrastructure, including data centres and AI facilities.
The question is particularly relevant in regions experiencing water scarcity or pressure on electricity networks. Japan's recent review of submarine cable resilience analysed above reached a similar conclusion, recommending that future cable landing stations be geographically diversified and integrated into broader national energy and digital infrastructure planning under the country's "Watt–Bit Integration" policy.
This approach recognises that the location of future landing stations should be influenced not only by marine engineering considerations, but also by the long-term availability of electricity, water and other strategic infrastructure.
Furthermore, climate litigation trends across industries show growing scrutiny of the manner in which environmental and transition risks are incorporated into project approvals and investment decisions. Regulators and courts are increasingly examining whether environmental assessments adequately consider foreseeable impacts rather than treating climate effects exclusively as future externalities (World Economic Forum, 2026).
Environmental claims associated with infrastructure projects are also subject to increasing scrutiny under emerging greenwashing frameworks.
Sustainability policy will also affect the vessels required to install and maintain cables. Discussions within the IMO concerning its Net-Zero Framework continued during 2026 following the postponement of final consideration the previous year.
During its 84th IMO session (MEPC 84) in April–May 2026, there was no consensus on the proposed IMO Net-Zero Framework and instead it was agreed to continue negotiations through an intersessional working group, with further discussions scheduled ahead for late 2026. The outcome of these negotiations will shape future greenhouse gas measures for international shipping, including the potential introduction of global economic mechanisms and fuel transition requirements.
For the submarine cable sector, these developments may also have implications for the availability, operating costs and long-term economics of specialised cable maintenance vessels. The International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience observed that repair transit times have increased significantly in recent years as the global maintenance fleet has become increasingly stretched.
In some regions, the challenge is particularly acute. For example, much of the South Atlantic relies on repair vessels mobilised from Caribbean maintenance bases, resulting in average transit times of around ten days before repair operations can even commence. Such mobilisations may consume fuel costing in the order of USD 1.5 million, costs that are ultimately borne by cable owners and, indirectly, by users of international connectivity.
Beyond operational sustainability, submarine cables are also contributing to environmental monitoring. SMART cables present significant opportunities but also unresolved regulatory challenges. By integrating environmental, oceanographic and seismic sensors into submarine telecommunications infrastructure, they can generate valuable data for tsunami early-warning systems, earthquake monitoring, climate research and civil protection without requiring separate dedicated sensor networks. European funding initiatives launched during 2026 have already recognised this potential by supporting the integration of sensing capabilities into submarine cable infrastructure.
However, the legal and governance framework for SMART cables remains largely undeveloped. Questions concerning data ownership, access rights, confidentiality, liability and the dissemination of scientific information are currently being addressed on a project-by-project basis, often through discussions with each coastal State along the cable route. As a result, developers increasingly need to engage with the relevant authorities from the earliest planning stages to clarify regulatory expectations and avoid unexpected requirements during marine installation.
Similar governance challenges are also emerging in relation to Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technologies, whose ability to transform optical fibres into continuous sensing systems raises comparable legal and security considerations.
One governance model being considered is for scientific and environmental data generated by SMART cables to be transmitted directly to the relevant coastal State authorities. Under this approach, the coastal State assumes responsibility for validating, processing and distributing the information to scientific institutions, navies and other authorised users. Although this model may help reconcile scientific cooperation with national security concerns, regulatory approaches continue to differ among jurisdictions.
Unlike traditional submarine cable regulation, where international practices are relatively mature, SMART cable governance is still being developed in real time, often through project-specific negotiations with each coastal State.
Looking Ahead
The legal and regulatory developments of 2026 demonstrate the increasing interaction between submarine cable resilience, security, competition, digital sovereignty, maritime safety, environmental sustainability and international law. Measures adopted in one area can have implications for deployment, operation and repair in others.
For governments, regulators and industry, this increasingly interconnected environment places greater emphasis on coordination across authorities and on consideration of regulatory requirements throughout the lifecycle of submarine cable projects. Ownership structures, supply chains, environmental considerations, repair arrangements and resilience strategies are increasingly addressed from the earliest stages of project development.
If 2025 was characterised by growing international attention to submarine cable resilience, 2026 saw that attention increasingly reflected in regulatory, institutional and operational initiatives across different jurisdictions. Further developments can be expected during 2027 as national and regional regulatory initiatives described above continue to evolve, with some moving from consultation and policy development towards implementation.
Andrés Fígoli is the author of the two-volume book “Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Telecommunication Submarine Cables” and is the director of Fígoli Consulting (Switzerland), where he provides legal and regulatory advice on all aspects of subsea cable work. Mr. Fígoli graduated in 2002 from the Law School of the University of the Republic (Uruguay), holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Northwestern University, and has more than two decades of experience in submarine cable matters. He also served as Director and Member of the Executive Committee of the International Cable Protection Committee (2015-2023).
This article was first published in Submarine Telecoms Forum, Industry Report – October 2026-2027.
References
Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações. (2026, May 26). Tomada de Subsídios No. 2/2026 – Submarine Cables [Public consultation, in Portuguese]. https://apps.anatel.gov.br/ParticipaAnatel/VisualizarTextoConsulta.aspx?TelaDeOrigem=2&ConsultaId=20400
A&O Shearman. (2026, March). Global antitrust enforcement report. https://www.aoshearman.com/en/insights/global-antitrust-enforcement-report
Association of Southeast Asian Nations. (2026, January 16). Enhanced ASEAN guidelines for strengthening resilience and repair of submarine cables. https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Enhanced-ASEAN-Guidelines-for-SR-and-Repair-of-Submarine.pdf
Communications Regulatory Authority. (2026, April). Decision No. 12 of 2026 on the regulation for offer of access to submarine cable landing station (SCLS) international connectivity services and accompanying guidelines. https://www.cra.gov.qa/en/Law-and-Regulations/Regulatory-Framework/Decisions/Regulation-and-Guidelines-for-Offer-of-Access-to-SCLS-International-Connectivity-Services
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Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. (2026). Report on measures to strengthen the resilience of submarine cable infrastructure [In Japanese]. https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/001081795.pdf
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