About
Why it is called Provenance.
In the art world, provenance is the documented history of an object — where it came from, whose hands it passed through, and the papers that prove it. A painting with a gap in its provenance is hard to sell, however fine it looks.
The idea
Data and AI have reached the same point.
A product can work beautifully and still be hard to sell, if no one can show where its data came from or how its AI was built and checked.
A buyer who cannot check is taking a risk under their own name. A company that cannot show its own trail will struggle the day a customer, an auditor or a regulator asks. Provenance is being set up to close that gap, with documents.
The founder
Hemant Patil
CIPP/E · AIGP
LL.M. Data Economy Law (in progress)
Engineer by training
Twenty-four years · Oracle · IBM
Provenance is led by Hemant Patil. He holds the CIPP/E and AIGP — Europe’s main certifications in data protection and AI governance — and is completing an LL.M. in Data Economy Law. He is also a qualified, bar-registered lawyer.
Before all of this, he spent twenty-four years inside enterprise technology, at Oracle and IBM, selling and delivering software and services to large organisations in more than forty countries.
That mix is the point. From engineering, he can read how a system is built. From the selling side, he knows which of a buyer’s questions decide a deal. From the law and the certifications, he knows what the rules actually require.
He is not admitted to practise law in Portugal or elsewhere in the EU, and Provenance is not a law firm. Almost all of this work needs the certifications above, not a courtroom — and the little that is reserved to lawyers goes to yours.
Where things stand
Not open yet.
Provenance is being established in the EU as a Portuguese company and expects to begin work in 2027. Until then it takes on no engagements and charges no fees. It is one senior person today, and it will say so plainly when its calendar is full.
Being established in the Union is a deliberate choice. Some of the roles Provenance plans to take, such as representing a company from outside Europe, are open only to a firm established in the Union. The firm will work in English, with clients across Europe and beyond.
Everything on this website describes what Provenance plans to offer once it opens. The fees shown are a guide and may change before then.
Write to Provenance
Write to Hemant directly, or to the office.
A few lines about what you are facing are enough. Hemant reads every message himself, and you will hear when the firm opens.