The HVG Law network (hereinafter referred to as: “HVG Law” or “we”), consisting of HVG Law LLP, (having its registered office at Boompjes 258, 3011 XZ Rotterdam (Chamber of Commerce registration number: 24433164)) and Donahue & Partners LLP (having its registered office at Times Square 5, 15th floor, NY 10036-6530 New York (Department of State ID: 2467542), attaches great importance to the protection of your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data. Pursuant to applicable data protection law, the relevant entity of HVG Law who you have contact with qualifies as the controller with respect to the processing of your personal data. This privacy statement (hereinafter referred to as: “Privacy Statement”) explains which personal data are collected and processed, for what purposes this occurs, how long we retain these personal data, what your rights are in this respect and how you can reach us. Below you will find an overview of all sections of this Privacy Statement.
- Processing of personal data: categories, purposes and legal bases
- Retention periods
- Transfer of personal data to third parties
- Security
- Third-party websites
- Your rights
- Cookie policy
- Changes to this Privacy Statement
- Questions and contact details
- Processing of personal data: categories, purposes and legal bases
1. Processing of personal data: categories, purposes and legal bases
Personal data are data that can be used to identify a person. HVG Law collects personal data in various ways, for example when you use our legal services, order publications, apply for a job, ask questions (via our website) and/or use other services. The situation in which HVG Law collects various types of personal data, for which purposes and on the basis of which legal bases, is described below.
Clients
HVG Law may collect and process the following categories of personal data:
- contact information: name (including prefix), title, position, telephone and fax number, Chamber of Commerce number, website, email address, company address, and other company and contact information;
- correspondence and other communications: procedural documents, letters, email messages, telephone notes and other communications;
- engagement information: information about our services to our clients, information regarding the content of the engagement, further information provided to us for the benefit of our clients or generated by us during our services to them, bank account numbers, payment history and information about making payments and collecting receivables; and
- identification and background information: gender, date of birth, place of birth, details of your identity document (such as identification number, photo, nationality, signature, place of issue of your identity document).
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data for the following purposes:
- to make offers to clients regarding the services we provide;
- for the provision of services as agreed with clients (including conducting (legal) proceedings);
- to facilitate the sharing of documentation between clients and HVG Law
- for handling complaints and/or feedback;
- to make payments and collect receivables;
- for a client acceptance investigation;
- to implement applicable legislation and regulations (including accounting obligations);
- to secure our offices by means of surveillance cameras (please note that Ernst & Young Nederland LLP is the controller with regard to the use of the surveillance cameras. More information on the use of the surveillance cameras can be found in the ‘Privacy Statement Camera Surveillance’ and in the related ‘General Privacy Statement EY Nederland’); and
- to maintain a business relationship with our clients, by sending newsletters, updates and ‘law alerts’ and/or to invite clients to our events.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data on the basis of the following legal bases:
- the processing is necessary for the performance of an agreement to which our clients are a party, or to take measures at the request of our clients prior to the conclusion of an agreement (purposes 1 through 5);
- the processing is necessary in order to comply with a legal obligation that rests with HVG Law (purposes 6 and 7); and
- the processing is necessary to promote the legitimate interests of HVG Law or of a third party (purposes 8 and 9).
(Potential) job applicants
HVG Law may collect and process the following categories of personal data:
- your contact information: name (including prefix), title, position, work location, service line, region, language start date, telephone number, home address, (company) email address, website;
- correspondence and other communications: letters, email messages, telephone notes and other communications; and
- further information related to recruitment (events): gender, date of birth, place of birth, CV and information based on a pre-employment screening (if carried out) such as employment history, grades, diplomas, assessment results, identity data, capacity test results, dietary requirements.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data for the following purposes:
- to assess to what extent the (potential) job applicant is suitable and to initiate a job application procedure; and
- to invite (potential) job applicants to our events and to have them participate in our events.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data on the basis of the following legal bases:
- the processing is necessary for the performance of an agreement to which a job applicant becomes a party (purpose I); and
- the job applicant has consented to the processing of his or her personal data (purpose II).
Suppliers
HVG Law may collect and process the following categories of personal data:
- contact information: name (including prefix), title, position, telephone and fax number, Chamber of Commerce number, website, VAT number, email address, company address, and other company and contact information;
- correspondence and other communications: letters, email messages, telephone notes and other communications; and
- engagement information: information about the supplier’s services to us, bank account numbers and information about making payments.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data for the following purposes:
- to purchase goods and/or services;
- to implement applicable legislation and regulations (including accounting obligations); and
- to maintain a business relationship with our suppliers.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data on the basis of the following legal bases:
- the processing is necessary for the performance of an agreement to which our suppliers are a party, or to take measures at the request of our suppliers prior to the conclusion of an agreement (purpose 1);
- the processing is necessary in order to comply with a legal obligation that rests with HVG Law (purpose 2); and
- the processing is necessary to promote the legitimate interests of HVG Law or a third party (purpose 3).
Third parties
HVG Law may collect and process the following categories of personal data:
- contact information: name (including prefix), title, position, telephone and fax number, Chamber of Commerce number, VAT number, website, email address, company address, and other company and contact information;
- correspondence and other communications: procedural documents, letters, email messages, telephone notes and other communications; and
- other information: data that we obtain from clients or third parties or from public sources for the handling of a case.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data for the following purposes:
- to communicate with third parties; and
- to offer and perform our legal services to clients.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data on the basis of the following legal bases:
- the processing is necessary to promote the legitimate interests of HVG Law or of a third party (purposes 1 and 2).
Website users/visitors
HVG Law may collect and process the following categories of personal data:
- contact information (for example, in case of newsletter registration): name (including prefix), title, position, telephone and fax number, Chamber of Commerce number, VAT number, website, email address, company address, and other company and contact information;
- correspondence and other communications: letters, email messages, telephone notes and other communications;
- technical data of the equipment used to visit the website, such as IP address, MAC address and software used and, depending on the cookie preferences set, the browsing behaviour on our website, including mouse and click behaviour and the duration and time of the visit to the website; and
- cookies: technical cookies, functional cookies, marketing and advertising cookies and tracking cookies. For more information about cookies and our cookie policy, please refer to paragraph 7 of this Privacy Statement.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data for the following purposes:
- to provide relevant information to our website visitors (including offering newsletters, legal updates and updates regarding our events);
- to communicate with website users/visitors;
- to enable the proper functioning of our website; and
- to enable access to social media websites if website visitors want to share comments and/or pages.
HVG Law processes the aforementioned personal data on the basis of the following legal bases:
- the processing is necessary to promote the legitimate interests of HVG Law or of a third party (purposes 1 through 3).
- the website user/visitor has consented to the processing of his or her personal data (purpose 4).
2. Retention periods
HVG Law will not retain your personal data for any longer than necessary for the purposes described above. In some cases, HVG Law is forced to comply with a legal obligation, as a result of which certain personal data must be retained for a longer period of time. For example in the case of our statutory obligation to keep records: certain personal data must be kept for a period of at least 7 years after the end of a tax year. We may also need to retain some personal data in our files for a longer period of time if an (expected) dispute or (legal) proceedings are involved.
We also have retention periods, which are not subject to a legal retention period. For example, personal data of job applicants will be retained for a maximum of 4 weeks after the end of the application process, unless the applicant becomes an employee. Another example is the retention period from the recordings of our surveillance cameras, which will be retained for a period of 4 weeks, unless an incident has been recorded. In that case, we will retain the relevant recordings until the incident has been resolved. For more information about our retention periods, please contact us using the contact details mentioned in paragraph 9 of this Privacy Policy.
3. Transfer of personal data to third parties
If HVG Law uses the services of third parties with which it has a strategic alliance and/or other suppliers, HVG Law will – where necessary – also pass on your personal data to these third parties. For example, HVG Law uses different types of IT suppliers and a third party (based in the Netherlands) to assess if a (potential) applicant is suitable to work at HVG Law.
In order to provide you with our services in the best possible way, you agree that your personal data may be used in countries outside the European Union and that your personal data may be exchanged with third parties established in countries outside the European Union engaged by HVG Law. For the purposes as specified in this Privacy Statement, your personal data may be shared between our offices in the United States of America (Donahue & Partners LLP, located in New York, California and Illinois). HVG Law has taken extensive technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data and will only disclose these personal data to third parties with similar standards of technical and organisational measures. Please contact us using the contact details mentioned in paragraph 9 of this Privacy Policy if you prefer receiving the transfer mechanisms that are being used.
Under no circumstances will HVG Law provide your personal data to third parties for commercial purposes. Only if HVG Law is legally required to do so will HVG Law provide your personal data to regulatory authorities, tax authorities and investigative authorities. In all cases, HVG Law will take appropriate measures to ensure the confidentiality and security of the data as much as possible.
4. Security
HVG Law has taken appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against loss or any other unauthorised use. Those who have access to your personal data on behalf of HVG Law have a duty of confidentiality, including the obligations prescribed by the applicable code of conduct and professional rules.
5. Third-party websites
The HVG Law website may contain links to third-party websites and these third parties may collect information about you. HVG Law is not responsible for the content or activities on the websites of these third parties. We recommend that you consult the privacy statements of these third parties.
6. Your rights
You have a number of rights with regard to your personal data and the processing thereof:
- the right to a confirmation from HVG Law that your personal data are being processed or not, and in the event that they are processed, the right to access your personal data and additional information about the processing of your personal data;
- the right to rectification of your personal data, for example if your personal data are not accurate;
- in certain cases the right to request HVG Law to delete your personal data;
- in certain cases, the right to a confirmation from HVG Law of a restriction on the processing of your personal data, for example because you contest the accuracy of your personal data;
- the right to receive, at your request, the personal data that you have made available to HVG Law in a structured and commonly used electronic format and the right to transfer these personal data to another controller, where the processing is based on your consent or on an agreement;
- the right to object to the processing of your personal data on the basis of legitimate interests of HVG Law. HVG Law will no longer process your personal data unless HVG Law demonstrates compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms or when it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a right in legal proceedings;
- when personal data are processed for direct marketing purposes, you have the right to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for marketing purposes. In that case, HVG Law will no longer process your personal data for such purposes; and
- the right not to have a decision based solely on automatic processing including profiling, which has legal consequences or affects you in a far-reaching way; and
- the right to withdraw your consent at any time (if consent is the basis for the processing). Withdrawal of consent has no retroactive effect. This means that consent no longer applies from the time of withdrawal.
These rights are not absolute. There may be circumstances in which HVG Law cannot (fully) implement your request as a data subject. This includes the confidentiality obligation of attorneys. As regards requests for the deletion of personal data, it should be taken into account that HVG Law will not grant such a request if it is incompatible with the mandatory statutory retention periods of HVG Law.
If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us using the contact details mentioned in paragraph 9. Please also contact us using the contact details mentioned in paragraph 9 of this Privacy Policy if you prefer receiving the balance of interests made regarding the legal basis legitimate interests in paragraph 1. The information provided will in principle be free of charge. You may exercise these rights at reasonable intervals.
We will respond to your request within one month, unless this is not possible due to the complexity of your request or the number of requests submitted. In such a case, we will inform you no later than within one month and extend our period to respond by a maximum of two months. If a request is granted by HVG Law, HVG Law will implement the decision to correct, change, delete and/or transfer the personal data as soon as possible.
In addition to the aforementioned rights, if you are dissatisfied with the way in which we process your personal data, handle your request or any other complaint, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens; ‘AP’), at Prins Clauslaan 60, 2995 AJ The Hague, the Netherlands. For more information, please visit the AP website at https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl.
7. Cookie policy
A cookie is a small unit of information that is transmitted by your browser when you are on the HVG Law website. In some cases, HVG Law uses cookies to ensure that the use of the HVG Law website is as efficient as possible. If you do not want HVG Law to use cookies with your browser, the settings on your browser can be adjusted so that the cookies are deactivated. This may affect the ease of use of the HVG Law website.
The HVG Law website automatically generates log files that record your use and that of other users. HVG Law keeps records of user data, such as a source address of the pages requested, IP (internet protocol) addresses and domain names, dates and number of requests for a page, links from their own websites and other parameters in the URLs (universal resource locators). These log files and data will be used, on an anonymous basis, for statistical purposes and for improving the services offered by HVG Law.
For more information about our cookie policy, click here.
8. Changes to the Privacy Statement
We may update this Privacy Statement from time to time. We therefore recommend that you consult it regularly via our website so that you are aware of any changes. This Privacy Policy is dated May 2021.
9. Questions and contact details
If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, how we process your personal data or if you wish to submit a request to exercise your rights as referred to above in point 6 of the Privacy Statement or if you have any other privacy related questions, please contact the Data Protection Officer of HVG Law LLP Mrs. S. Vermeer-de Jongh at saskia.de.jongh@hvglaw.nl or by telephone +31 88 40 70103.
You can also send a letter to HVG Law, for the attention of Mrs. S. Vermeer-de Jongh, Postbus 2295, 3000 CG Rotterdam. Our Data Protection Officer will be available to investigate your complaint and to inform you about how it will be dealt with.