The French Government has banned the publication of all data analysis related to judges' rulings in France and will impose a prison sentence of up to five years on those violating the law.

The move, believed to be the first such ban anywhere in the world, is likely to have a huge impact on legaltech and data analytics companies, and also could affect in-house legal departments and law firms.

The new law, Article 33 of the Justice Reform Act, is aimed at preventing anyone – but especially legaltech companies focused on litigation prediction and analytics – from publicly revealing the pattern of judges' behaviour in relation to court decisions.