Privacy & Cookies Statement

This Privacy & Cookies Statement describes how Baker McKenzie LLP and other member firms and affiliates of Baker McKenzie International (the “Firm”) collects, uses, shares, and otherwise processes Personal Data (defined below) about:

• Visitors to our websites, mobile applications, and other online properties (each, a “Site”)
• Contact persons for our clients and/or prospective clients
• Contact persons for suppliers of goods and services to the Firm
• Any other individuals about whom the Firm obtains Personal Data

In this Privacy & Cookies Statement, “Personal Data” means information that (either in isolation or in combination with other information held by the Firm) enables you to be identified as an individual or recognized directly or indirectly.

Overview

Unless we specifically state otherwise, the Firm is the controller of the Personal Data we process, and is therefore responsible for ensuring that the systems and processes we use are compliant with data protection laws, to the extent applicable to us.

Firm personnel are required to comply with this Privacy & Cookies Statement and associated Firm policies when dealing with Personal Data and must also complete data protection training where appropriate to their role.

Summary of Key Points

Use of Personal Data

The purposes for which we use Personal Data, and the legal bases for such processing, are as follows:

• To provide legal advice and respond to inquiries we use basic data, registration data, client service data, and device data.  We need to process your information in this way in order to perform our obligations under our contracts with our clients.
• To manage our business operations and administer our client relationships we use basic data, special categories of data, registration data, marketing data and client service data.  This processing is necessary in order to perform our obligations under our contracts with our clients (e.g. issuing and processing invoices) and suppliers (e.g. managing the supply of goods and services to the Firm).
• To make our Sites more intuitive and easy to use we use device data. It is necessary for our legitimate interests to monitor how our Sites are used to help us improve the layout and information available on our Sites and provide a better service to our Site users.
• To protect the security and effective functioning of our Sites and information technology systems we use basic data, registration data, transaction data, and device data.  It is necessary for our legitimate interests to monitor how our Sites are used to detect and prevent fraud, other crimes and the misuse of our Sites.  This helps us to ensure that you can safely use our Sites.
• To expand and maintain our list of contacts, better understand how people use our services and improve the strength of our relationships with clients and other third parties we use basic data, interaction data and device data. It is necessary for our legitimate interests to keep your information accurate and up-to-date with the aim of improving the overall client experience and our relationship with you.
• To provide relevant marketing such as providing you with information about events or services that may be of interest to you including legal services, legal updates, client conferences or networking events, and groups of specific interest (e.g. specific types of networking groups) we use marketing data, basic data, special categories of data, registration data, client service data, and device data. It is necessary for our legitimate interests to process this information in order to provide you with tailored and relevant marketing, updates and invitations.
• To address compliance and legal obligations, such as complying with the Firm’s tax reporting obligations, checking the identity of new clients and to prevent money laundering and/or fraud we use compliance data, basic data, registration data, transaction data, and device data.  This processing is necessary for the purposes of complying with legal requirements to which we are subject.
• To consider individuals for employment and contractor opportunities and manage on-boarding procedures we use job applicant data and compliance data.   The processing is necessary for the purposes of recruitment and on-boarding and for complying with legal obligations to which we are subject and which may be subject to a relevant local recruitment privacy policy.

Sharing of Personal Data

We may share Personal Data with the following categories of recipients:

• Affiliates:  Baker McKenzie LLP operates under the umbrella of Baker McKenzie International, a Swiss Verein, with member law firms and affiliates (including our global services companies in Belfast, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Manila and Tampa) around the world. Each member firm may share Personal Data with other member law firms and affiliates in order to provide you with legal services and in order to administer our relationship with you (e.g. invoicing, marketing) or otherwise as necessary for the purposes described above. A list of Baker McKenzie member firms is provided here.
• Suppliers and service providers: We share Personal Data with suppliers and service providers to enable such parties to perform functions on our behalf and under our instructions in order to carry out the purposes identified above.  These include: infrastructure and IT services providers, for example, the providers of our client intake system, our finance systems and our customer relationship management databases; third party consultants who provide us with support in respect of business analytics and marketing campaigns; and the providers of external venues where we host conferences and events.
  We require such parties by contract to provide reasonable security for Personal Data and to use and process such Personal Data on our behalf only.
• Financial institutions: We share Personal Data with financial institutions in connection with invoicing and payments.
• Corporate purchasers: We may share Personal Data with any corporate purchaser or prospect to the extent permitted by law as part of any merger, acquisition, sale of Firm assets, or transition of service to another provider, as well as in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which Personal Data would be transferred as an asset of the Firm.
• Mandatory disclosures and legal claims: We share Personal Data in order to comply with the Firm’s tax reporting obligations, comply with any subpoena, court order or other legal process, to comply with a request from our regulators, governmental request or any other legally enforceable demand.  We also share Personal Data to establish or protect our legal rights, property, or safety, or the rights, property, or safety of others, or to defend against legal claims.

If you have questions about the parties with which we share Personal Data, please contact us as specified below.

Marketing Choices

You have control regarding our use of Personal Data for direct marketing. In certain markets, you will need to expressly consent before receiving marketing.  In all markets, you can choose to not receive such communications at any time. If you no longer wish to receive any marketing communications, remain on a mailing list to which you previously subscribed, or receive any other marketing communication,  please follow the unsubscribe link in the relevant communication or contact us as per below.

Data Subject Rights

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) you have the following rights:

• Access. Subject to certain exceptions , you have the right to request a copy of the Personal Data we are processing about you, which we will provide to you in electronic form. At our discretion we may require you to prove your identity before providing the requested information.  If you require multiple copies of your Personal Data, we may charge a reasonable administration fee.
• Rectification. You have the right to require that any incomplete or inaccurate Personal Data that we process about you is amended.
• Deletion. You have the right to request that we delete Personal Data that we process about you, unless we are required to retain such data in order to comply with a legal obligation or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
• Restriction. You have the right to request that we restrict our processing of your Personal Data where:
  • you believe such data to be inaccurate;
  • our processing is unlawful; or
  • we no longer need to process such data for a particular purpose, but where we are not able to delete the data due to a legal or other obligation or because you do not want us to delete it.
• Portability. You have the right to request that we transmit the Personal Data we hold in respect of you to another controller, where this is:
  • personal information which you have provided to us; and
  • we are processing that data on the basis of your consent or in order to perform our obligations under contract to you (such as to provide legal services).
• Objection. Where the legal justification for our processing of your Personal Data is our legitimate interest, you have the right to object to such processing on grounds relating to your particular situation. We will abide by your request unless we have compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests and rights, or if we need to continue to process the data for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim.
• Withdrawing Consent. If you have consented to our processing of your Personal Data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, free of charge  This includes cases where you wish to opt out from marketing messages that you receive from us.

If you are in the EEA you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the local data protection authority if you believe that we have not complied with applicable data protection laws. Access a list of local data protection authorities in EEA countries.

Data Security

We have implemented technical and organisational measures in an effort to safeguard the Personal Data in our custody and control. Such measures include:

• restricting access to Personal Data to staff and service providers on a need-to-know basis;
• a formal Information Security Management System (ISMS) aligned with ISO 27001 and 27002:2013. The ISMS is a comprehensive set of policies and procedures for deploying, managing and securing the Firm’s Information Technology infrastructure; utilizing a defense-in-depth approach to protecting our internal Firm and client data.

While we endeavour to always protect our systems, sites, operations and information against unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure, due to the inherent nature of the Internet as an open global communications vehicle and other risk factors, we cannot guarantee that any information, during transmission or while stored on our systems, will be absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

You also have an important role in protecting Personal Data. You should not share any username, password or other authentication data provided to you with anyone, and we recommend that you do not re-use passwords across more than one website or application. If you have any reason to believe that your username or password has been compromised, please contact us as detailed below.

Cross-Border Data Transfers

We transfer Personal Data to jurisdictions as necessary for the purposes described above, including to jurisdictions that may not provide the same level of data protection as your home country. In particular, our Sites are hosted on servers in the United States. If you are located in a non-US jurisdiction, the transfer of Personal Data is necessary to provide you with the requested information and/or to perform any requested transaction. When you submit personal information to us you are transferring your data across borders.

With respect to transfers originating from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) to the United States and other non-EEA jurisdictions, we implement standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission, and other appropriate solutions to address cross-border transfers as required or permitted by Articles 46 and 49 of the General Data Protection Regulation. Where required by such laws, you may request a copy of the suitable mechanisms we have in place by contacting us as detailed below.

California Consumer Privacy Act 2018

For information about our data processing practices as required by the California Consumer Privacy Act 2018, please view our CCPA Disclosures page.

Other Issues

1. What are the consequences of not providing Personal Data?

You are not required to provide all Personal Data identified in this Privacy & Cookies Statement to use our Sites or to interact with us offline, but certain functionality will not be available if you do not provide Personal Data. If you do not provide Personal Data, we may not be able to respond to your request, provide legal services to you, or provide you with marketing that we believe you would find valuable.

2. Do we engage in automated decision-making without human intervention?

We do not use automated decision-making without human intervention, including profiling, in a way that produces legal effects concerning you or otherwise significantly affects you.

3. Do the Sites honor do not track (“DNT”) signals sent via browsers?

Given the divergent practices of organizations that offer browsers and the lack of a standard in the marketplace, we generally do not respond to DNT signals at this time.

4. How long do we retain Personal Data?

We typically retain Personal Data related to marketing activities for as long as you accept marketing communications from us, and we will securely delete such data in accordance with applicable law upon request.  For Personal Data that we collect and process for other purposes, we will typically retain such Personal Data for as long as it is necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy & Coolies Statement and as otherwise specified in applicable record retention policies and procedures.

5. Are third party websites governed by this Privacy & Cookies Statement?

The Sites may contain links and references to other websites administered by unaffiliated third parties. This Privacy & Cookies Statement does not apply to such third party sites.  When you click a link to visit a third party website, you will be subject to that website’s privacy practices.  We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the privacy and security practices of any linked third party websites before providing any Personal Data on that website.

6. How does the Firm handle employee and contractor privacy issues?

Personal Data about our employees and contractors are addressed through internal Firm policies and procedures, and are outside the scope of this Privacy & Cookies Statement.

7. How will we handle any changes to this Privacy & Cookies Statement?

We may update this Privacy & Cookies Statement from time to time as our services and privacy practices change, or as required by law.  The effective date of our Privacy & Cookies Statement is posted below, and we encourage you to visit our Sites periodically to stay informed about our privacy practices. We will post the updated version of the Privacy & Cookies Statement on our Sites, and ask for your consent to the changes if legally required.

Contact Us

If you have questions or comments regarding this Privacy & Cookies Statement or our privacy practices, please contact us here:

Office of General Counsel – Data Privacy

Baker & McKenzie Global Services NI Limited
City Quays One
7 Clarendon Road
Belfast
N. Ireland
BT13BG
dataprivacy@bakermckenzie.com

Effective date: November 2023