Terms & Conditions

PB&C Website Terms & Conditions

 

By using this website and/or submitting your particulars to us, you agree to comply with and be legally bound by these terms of use, which shall take effect immediately on your first use of this website. We suggest that you take the time to familiarise yourself with their contents. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all the following terms please do not access and/or use this website.

We may from time to time change the contents of these terms of use by posting changes online. Please review the Terms of Use regularly to ensure you are aware of any changes made by us. Your continued use of this website after changes are posted signifies your agreement to be legally bound by these Terms of Use as updated and/or amended.

 

Disclaimer

 

The materials contained in this website are provided for general information purposes only and are not intended to provide legal or other professional advice. PB&C and/or any of its partners, lawyers or employees accept no responsibility for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage which may arise from reliance on information or views appearing on this website. You are advised to seek confirmation of statements made herein before acting upon them; specialist advice should always be sought on specific issues.

PB&C and/or any of its partners, lawyers or employees will not accept any responsibility for any loss or damage which may arise in connection with the use of or reliance upon any materials or information appearing on this web site.

Where we provide hypertext links to third party websites, such links are not an endorsement or recommendation by us of any information, products or services in such web-sites, but are only provided by us because we think that they may be of interest to you or for information purposes or for convenience. Accordingly you use such links entirely at your own risk and we accept no responsibility or liability for the content, use, privacy policies or availability of such websites. We have not verified the truth or accuracy of any content of such websites.

This website may also contain some material provided by third parties and we do not necessarily agree with the content of such material. When this is the case we will state so. We accept no responsibility or liability for the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of such material.

 

Copyright

 

All rights, including copyright, in the content of this website are owned or controlled for these purposes by PB&C. In accessing this website, you agree that you may only download and store (in any medium) the content for your own personal non-commercial use or that of your firm or company.

Except where expressly stated otherwise, you are not permitted to copy, broadcast, download, store (on any medium), transmit, show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the content of this website for any other purpose whatsoever without the prior written permission of PB&C.

We only permit links to the home page of this website.  You may not provide a link to any other page of this website without obtaining our prior written consent. Furthermore, we reserve the right to request you to remove any link to this website and you agree to remove such link promptly upon request.

 

Governing law

 

These terms of use shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with Maltese law.

 

Jurisdiction

 

The Courts of Malta shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all claims or disputes arising in relation to or in connection with this website and its use, the terms of use and the privacy statement.

 

PB&C Privacy Notice

 

Introduction

 

PB&C’s privacy notice (the “Notice”) includes certain important information we wish to relay to all visitors on our website.

 

PB&C of 5, Annunciation Square, Sliema, SLM 1450 (“PB&C”; “we”; “us”; “our”) respects your privacy and values its importance, and is wholly committed to protecting your personal data. The purpose of this Notice is to lay out the bases for which we will process your personal data in the situation that you:

  • approach and/or engage us to provide you with our legal and consultancy services (the “Services”); and/or
  • receive the various Services that you may request from us during the course of this engagement; and/or
  • visit and use our website www.pbc.legal (the “Website” or the “Site”), wherever you may be accessing it from.

This Notice also extends to include any data that you may provide for and in relation to our newsletters, updates, events and other marketing and promotional communications.

This Notice informs you about the personal data that we may collect from you and how we will handle it. It also informs you of our obligations with respect to the responsible processing of your personal data, and your data protection rights as a data subject.

We process your data in an appropriate and lawful manner, in accordance with the Data Protection Act (Chapter 586 of the Laws of Malta) (the “Act”), as may be amended or replaced from time to time, and the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (the “Regulation” or the “GDPR”).

 

Kindly note that, by engaging us as your lawyers or consultants, you enter into a contractual relationship with PB&C, as subject to and governed by our Letter of Engagement. This Letter of Engagement stipulates that we will process your personal data in accordance with the practices set out in this Notice.

 

Who We Are

 

This Notice aims to ensure that you are fully informed as to how we will collect and process your personal data in the scenarios indicated above in the ‘Introduction’.

Even though we maintain that our Website is not intended for minors, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to minors except and unless where it is necessary in order to provide you with the Services that you may request from us, we still pledge to treat any information relating to minors which is disclosed to us in connection with the Services in a sensitive manner and with the utmost confidentiality.

It is important that you read this Notice together with any other privacy or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

 

Controller

 

PB&C is the controller and we are responsible for the Website.

We are also the data controller of any personal data which we collect or receive and which we process in connection with the Services and/or the Website.

We have a dedicated data protection overseer who serves as our data protection contact point and is responsible for overseeing queries in relation to this Notice and for handling any data subject requests. If you have any question about this Notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact our data protection team using the contact details set out below. Please use the words ‘Data Protection Matter’ in the subject line.

 

Our full details are as follows.

 

Contact details

 

Full name of legal entity: PB&C

Email address: [email protected]

 

You have the right to lodge a complaint at any time to a competent supervisory authority on data protection matters, such as in particular the supervisory authority in the place of your habitual residence or your place of work. In the case of Malta, this is the Office of the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (the “IDPC”) https://idpc.org.mt/en/Pages/Home.aspx). We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to deal with your concerns before you approach the supervisory authority, so please contact us in the first instance.

 

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

 

It is imperative that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current at all times. Otherwise, this will impair our ability to provide you with the requested Services (amongst other potential and salient issues). Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during the course of our engagement and professional relationship with you.

 

Third-party links

 

The Website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy notice or policies. We strongly encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit, particularly when leaving our WebsitE.

 

definitions

 

Set out below are key definitions of certain data protection terms which appear in this Notice.

“Consent Form” refers to separate documents which we might from time to time provide you where we ask for your explicit consent for any processing which is not for purposes set out in this Notice.

“Data subjects” means living individuals (i.e. natural persons) about whom we collect and process personal data.

“Data controller” or “controller” means any entity or individual who determines the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any personal data is processed.

“Data processor” or “processor” means any entity or individual that processes data on our behalf and on our instructions (we being the data controller).

“Personal data” means data relating to a living individual (i.e. natural person) who can be identified from the data (information) we hold or possess. This includes, but is not limited to, your name and surname (including maiden name where applicable), address, date of birth, nationality, gender, civil status, tax status, identity card number & passport number, contact details (including mobile and home phone number and personal email address), photographic image, bank account details, emergency contact information as well as online identifiers. The term “personal information”, where and when used in this Notice, shall be taken have the same meaning as personal data.

“Processing” means any activity that involves use of personal data. It includes obtaining, recording or holding the data, or carrying out any operation or set of operations on the data including, organising, amending, retrieving, using, disclosing, erasing or destroying it. Processing also includes transferring personal data to third parties.

“Sensitive personal data”, “sensitive data” or “special categories of personal data” includes information about a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or similar beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health or condition or sexual life, or about the commission of, or proceedings for, any offence committed or alleged to have been committed by that person, the disposal of such proceedings or the sentence of any court in such proceedings. This type of sensitive data can only be processed under strict conditions.

 

Note that personal data does not include information relating to a legal person (for example, a company or other legal entity). In that regard, information such as a company name, its company number, registered address and VAT number does not amount to personal data in terms of both the Act and the GDPR. Therefore, the collection and use of information strictly pertaining to a legal person does not give rise to data controller obligations at law. We will still naturally treat any and all such information in a confidential manner, in accordance with our standard practices and professional secrecy obligations.

 

The data we collect about you

 

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

In the course of its engagement and professional relationship with you, PB&C will need to collect, use, and sometimes, disclose various items of personal data about you for various purposes associated with the scope of the Services that we provide, as requested and directed by you or by your organisation. Given the broad spectrum of our potential Services to you or to your organisation, it is both impractical and almost impossible to exhaustively list all the items of personal data which we may need to collect, use or disclose about you.

However, to ensure transparency, we have made an attempt to group and categorise below the different kinds of personal data about our clients or mere users of the Website that we may generally need to collect, process, use, share and store. For the reasons explained above, these data categories are strictly indicative and not exhaustive.

  • Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, title, identity document number, gender, nationality, employment status, organisation, occupation and (in the context of the Website) username or similar identifier.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, mailing address, email address and contact numbers.

In the context of our corporate clients and the other legal entities that we assist, we may collect Identity and Contact Data about the following persons:

    • directors;
    • legal and judicial representatives;
    • company secretary and other officers (for example, MLROs, DPOs and risk officers);
    • internal (‘in-house’) legal counsel;
    • auditors;
    • shareholders and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs);
    • founders and board of administrators in the case of Foundation;
    • settlors, beneficiaries, protectors and trustees in the case of a Trust.
  • Compliance Data (AML and KYC) includes the following due diligence information and documentation relating to our clients, or their respective UBO, shareholders, founders, beneficiaries, directors, representatives and/or administrators (as applicable) where the client is a legal person: (i) copy of identity document, (ii) copy of a recently issued utility bill, (iii) professional references, (iv) ‘KYC’ (database) checks and (iv) any other documentation which may be mandated from time to time by the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (Chapter 373 of the Laws of Malta) (“PMLA”), the Prevention of Money Laundering and Funding of Terrorism Regulations (“PMLFTR”), the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (“FIAU”) and/or any other competent authority or related legislation.
  • Assistance Data includes the following information about our clients:

(i) the client’s legal requirements, situation, plans, interests and targets or objectives;

(ii) the Services requested by, and provided to, the client;

(iii) counter and adverse parties, related parties, parties in interest, business partners, witnesses, investors, assets, shareholders, security holders, guarantors, buyers, sellers and customers of the client, and Court decisions or orders issued in favour or against the client (as strictly relevant and necessary to provide the Services).

The above may also entail the collection, processing and retention of contracts, agreements, public deeds, testamentary dispositions, judicial acts and Court decisions pertaining to the client (as applicable and necessary for the Services).

  • Financial Data includes the bank account details of the client together with details about any payment methods used by the client to settle our invoices and, as may be necessary under the particular circumstances, the financial status and creditworthiness of the client.
  • Transaction Data includes details about (i) invoices issued to the client (including date of settlement and means of settlement), (ii) payments made to and from the client and (iii) any outstanding invoices due by the client.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices which you (whether a client or otherwise) use to access and browse the Website.
  • Profile Data includes information about the legal areas that may be of interest or relevance to you (based on the Services that you request from us), your feedback and survey responses.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you (whether a client or otherwise) use our Website.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties or associated entities and your communication preferences. This may include information whether you have subscribed or unsubscribed from any of our mailing lists, attended any of our events or accepted any of our invitations.

We will also collect, use and process any other personal information that you voluntarily choose to provide or disclose to us where relevant and necessary in order to provide the Services that you have requested from us. Any such information that we receive from you would fall under the ‘Assistance Data’ category.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific feature of the Website. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Notice.

 

If you fail to provide personal data

 

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or pursuant to our terms of business and engagement, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to assist you or provide you with your requested Services. In certain cases, particularly where it relates to Compliance Data, we may even need to exercise our prerogative to terminate the Services and your engagement with us, or otherwise decline to enter into professional relationship with you (as applicable). We will notify you if this is the case at the time.

 

Special categories of personal data

 

We may occasionally need to collect and process certain special categories of personal data, including potentially information relating to your criminal convictions and offences. When this data concerns you, by engaging us you will be providing us with your unambiguous consent to process the data in order to provide you with the requested services. We may also process third party special categories of data where authorised by, and in accordance with our obligations at law.

The lawyers and other advisors that form part of PB&C are bound by strict professional secrecy obligations.

 

How is your personal data collected?

 

We generally use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct Interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact, Compliance, Financial, Assistance and Marketing and Communications Data by completing our letter of engagement, filling in our forms (such as our ‘Contact Form’ accessible [link to contact us page], or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise or during face-to-face meetings. This includes personal data you provide when you:
    • approach us to assist you on a particular matter;
    • discuss with us the assistance that you require (whether via meetings, telcos or email correspondence);
    • enter into a formal engagement with us;
    • request further assistance from us;
    • contact us with complaints or legal queries;
    • complete an enquiry form;
    • report issues;
    • submit the Compliance Data that we request;
    • request marketing to be sent to you;
    • express interest and/or attend any of our seminars or other hosted events;
    • participate in a survey or our webinars;
    • subscribe to our newsletters and updates;
    • give us some feedback; or
    • through our provision of the Services to you or to your organisation. This may encompass all of the data categories listed in Clause 3 (namely, Identity, Contact, Compliance, Financial, Transaction and Assistance Data).
    • During the course of dealings with you for or on behalf of your organisation or a client. This may encompass most of the data categories listed in Clause 3, but will generally vary on a case-by-case basis.
    • Automated technologies or interactions. When you interact with our Website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We may collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
    • Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
      • Technical Data from the following parties:

(a) analytics providers;

(b) advertising networks; and

(c) search information providers.

    • Financial and Transaction Data from our banks.
    • Identity, Contact, Compliance and Assistance Data from publicly available sources such as public court documents, the Malta Registry of Companies, the Malta Ship Registry, companies and shipping registers of other jurisdictions, and from electronic data searches, online search tools (which may be subscription or license based), anti-fraud databases and other third party databases, sanctions lists and general searches carried out via online search engines (e.g. Google).
    • Identity, Contact, Compliance and Assistance Data from instructing law firms or other clients.
    • Financial Data from credit reference agencies.

How we use your personal data

 

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where you wish to formally engage us;
  • Where we are providing you with your requested Services;
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  • Where we need to comply with our legal and professional obligations to third parties (this includes our professional duties to the Courts of Malta and our obligations to regulators)

We do not generally rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data, other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications. You have the right to withdraw consent to such marketing at any time by contacting us, as indicated below.

 

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

 

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

 

Note that we may process your personal data pursuant to more than one lawful ground or basis, depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us at [email protected] if you need details or wish to enquire about the specific lawful basis we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one lawful basis has been set out in the table below.

 

Purpose/Activity Type of data Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
(a) To determine whether we will enter into a professional relationship with you;(b) To determine whether we can assist you and provide you with the requested Services; and(c) To enter into a formal engagement with you. (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Compliance;(d) Assistance; and(e) Financial. (a) Performance of a contract with you or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into such a contract.(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to determine whether we can or want to enter into a professional relationship with you, to determine whether we can assist you on the matter for which you have approached us, to carry out internal conflict clearance searches and to verify your ability to meet financial commitments that may result from your requested scope of assistance).
(a) To establish and verify your identity;

(b) To fulfil our other internal compliance policies and requirements;

(c) To comply with our obligations under the PMLA, PMLFTR and others laws or regulations that may be applicable to us in terms of client due diligence and AML requirements; and

(d) To fulfil external mandatory reporting obligations that we may have to the FIAU, the MFSA, the Police and any other (including overseas) public, regulatory, law enforcement or tax authorities.

 (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Compliance; and

(d) Assistance*

*provided that we are exempt from professional secrecy obligations in case of disclosure and reporting.

 (a) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to establish and verify the identity of our clients, even where the requested assistance does not amount to a ‘relevant activity’, for internal risk assessment and internal management).
(a) To provide you or your organisation with the requested Services;

(b) To improve the provision of those Services to you or your organisation.

 (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Compliance. (a) Performance of a contract with you.(b) Necessary to comply with professional obligations and ethical duties.
(a) For billing and invoice purposes;

(b) To collect and recover money which is owed to us (debt recovery).

(c) Internal record keeping (including files).

 (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Assistance;(d) Financial; and(e) Transaction. (a) Performance of a contract with you.

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (accounting and other record-keeping requirements).

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us, to keep track of the Services provided to the client and their status or outcome, to be able to revisit such matters if new issues arise).
To manage our professional relationship with you (as a client or where the client is your organisation), which may include to:

(a) notify you about changes to our terms of business or privacy notices;

(b) deal with your enquiries, requests, complaints or reported issues;

(c) contact you in the course of providing the requested Services;

(d) ask you to participate in a survey;

(e) request feedback from you;

(f) advise you of industry and legislative updates,

(g) inform you about our events and seminars (including webinars);

(h) provide you with information about our Services, and

(h) provide you with any other information or materials that you have requested to receive from us.

 (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Assistance;(d) Usage;(e) Profile; and

(f) Marketing and Communications

 (a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for client relationship handling and management, to study business growth and possible trends regarding our service areas, to enable a review and assessment of our service provision, to develop and grow our business).
(a) To detect, prevent and/or report fraud or any other criminal activity that comes to our knowledge and attention.(b) To assist and cooperate in any criminal or regulatory investigations against you, as may be required of us. (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Compliance;(d) Assistance;(e) Financial; and(f) Transaction. Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
To administer and protect our firm, business and the Website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data). (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Technical; and(d) Usage. (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running and administering our firm and business (including IT support), systems administration, network security, to prevent fraud and to maintain the confidentiality of communications, and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise).

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation.
(a) To carry out market research campaigns;

(b) To market our Services to you by email or other means if you have subscribed to one of our mailing lists (where you are not a client);

(c) To deliver relevant Website content and advertisements to you, and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you.

 (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Technical ;(d) Usage;(e) Profile; and

(f) Marketing and Communications.

 (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our lines of Services and grow our business, to define our clients and their industries or sectors, to keep our Services and the Website updated and relevant, and to inform our marketing strategy.).

(b) On the basis of your consent, in the absence of a client relationship.
To permit PB&C to pursue available remedies or limit any damages that we may sustain. (a) Identity;(b) Contact;(c) Assistance;(d) Financial;(e) Transaction; and

(f) Marketing and Communications.

 (a) Performance of a contract with you.(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests.

“Legitimate Interest” means our interest to conduct and manage our business affairs appropriately and responsibly, to protect the reputation of our business and firm, and to provide our clients with the best possible service and the users of the Site with a secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us at the following email address: [email protected].

 

“Performance of Contract” means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract. This includes our Letter of Engagement or other terms of business.

“Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation” means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around advertising and marketing. Through your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data, we are able to form a view on what we think you or your organisation may want or need in terms of legal and advisory services. This is how we decide which of our Services may be of most relevance or interest for you and/or your organisation.

You may receive marketing communications from us (which may consist of newsletters, industry and legislative updates, mailshots, publications and/or information about our events, seminars and webinars) where:

  • you have entered into a client or business partner relationship with us, regardless of whether a formal engagement letter has been signed or otherwise; and
  • provided you have not opted out of receiving marketing from us (see Your right to object below).

Where the above does not apply to you, we will only send you our marketing communications where you have expressly consented to receive them from us.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third parties (including our associated corporate entities) for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing communications (unsubscribe) at any time by following the opt-out (unsubscribe) links on any marketing communication sent to you.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of the Website may become inaccessible or not function properly. This Notice should be read in conjunction with our IP address and cookie policy.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose, or we are obliged to process your data by applicable laws or court / enforceable orders.

If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at [email protected].

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal data without the need to obtain your consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

 

Disclosures of your personal data

 

We may have to grant access to, disclose or share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above:

  • Other law firms, notarial firms or accountancy firms involved in the provision of the Services to you (including instructing any of the aforementioned firms with whom we are collaborating or such firms that we have engaged for you at your request or on your behalf).
  • Suppliers and external agencies that we engage to process information on our and/or your behalf, including to provide you with the information and/or materials that you have requested.
  • Service providers, including those that provide IT support and system administration services for PB&C.
  • Professional advisers such as consultants, bankers, professional indemnity insurers, brokers and auditors.
  • The Commissioner for Revenue, regulators and other authorities, including the Courts of Malta, the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, the Police Authorities and the Malta Financial Services Authority.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets (successors in title). Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this Notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our documented instructions.

 

International transfers

 

We do not generally transfer your personal data to entities outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) except as may be necessary to: (i) provide you with the requested Services, (ii) fulfil our contractual obligations to you or exercise our contractual obligations against you, (iii) comply with our legal or regulatory obligations or (iv) assert, file or exercise a legal claim. Where we do need to transfer your personal data to outside the EEA (whether for these stated purposes or any other purpose listed in the table above), we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to that personal data by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards applies or is otherwise implemented:

  • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
  • In the absence of an adequacy decision, we will use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
  • Where we use providers based in the U.S., we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

 

Note however that when you instruct us to transfer or share your personal data, including with other law firms (based in or outside the EEA), we will perform any processing activity required to fulfil such instructions as your mandatories and not as an autonomous controller. As your mandatories, we will not be required to enter into a contractual mechanism, joint controller agreement or otherwise, with the recipient to whom you have instructed us to share or transfer your personal data.

 

Data security

 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed (safeguard its integrity and confidentiality).

We also regularly review and, where practicable, improve upon these security measures.

In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other professional third parties who strictly need to know this information. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. All our employees and agents have received appropriate training on data protection.

 

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

 

Data retention

 

Please note that PB&C considers its professional relationship with clients to be an ongoing and continuous engagement, until such time that it is terminated in accordance with our Letter of Engagement.

 

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it (the provision of the Services and the ongoing performance of our professional relationship with you) and, thereafter, for the purpose of satisfying any legal, accounting, tax, anti-money laundering and regulatory reporting requirements or obligations to which we may be subject and/or to the extent that we may also need to retain your personal data to be able to assert, exercise or defend possible future legal claims against or otherwise involving you.

 

By and large, our retention of your personal data shall not exceed the period of six (6) years from the termination of your engagement with us. This retention period enables us to make use of your personal data for potential AML reporting obligations to the FIAU (a legal obligation) and/or for the assertion, filing or defence of possible legal claims by or against you (taking into account applicable statutes of limitation and prescriptive periods). In certain cases, we may need to retain your personal data for a period of up to eleven (11) years in order to comply with applicable accounting and tax laws (this will primarily consist of your Transaction and Payment Data). There may also be instances where the need to retain personal data for longer periods is dictated by the nature of the services provided.

 

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data. See Request erasure below for further information.

In other circumstances, we may also anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Kindly contact us at [email protected] for further details about the retention periods that we apply.

 

Data minimisation

 

To the extent possible, we may anonymise the data which we hold about you when it is no longer necessary to identify you from the data which we hold about you. In some circumstances, we may even pseudonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

 

Your legal rights

 

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

  • Request access to your personal data.
  • Request correction (rectification) of your personal data.
  • Request erasure of your personal data.
  • Object to processing of your personal data.
  • Request restriction of processing your personal data.
  • Request transfer of your personal data.
  • Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at [email protected].

 

No fee is usually charged

 

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may simply refuse to comply with your request in such circumstances.

 

What we may need from you

 

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

 

Time limit to respond

 

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within a period of one (1) month from the date of receiving your request. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

 

You have the right to:

(i) Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

You may send an email to [email protected] requesting information as the personal data which we process. You shall receive one copy free of charge via email of the personal data which is undergoing processing. Any further copies of the information processed shall incur a charge of €10.00.

(ii) Right to information when collecting and processing personal data about you from publicly accessible or third party sources. When this take places, we will inform you, within a reasonable and practicable time frame, about the third party or publicly accessible source from which we have collected your personal data.

(iii) Request correction or rectification of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected and/or updated, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us. As mentioned, it is in your interest to keep us informed of any changes or updates to your personal data which may occur during the course of your relationship with us, since this may otherwise impair our ability to provide you with your requested Services or the quality thereof.

(iv) Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where:

  • there is no good reason for us continuing to process it;
  • you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below);
  • we may have processed your information unlawfully; or
  • we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law.

Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request. These may include instances where the retention of your personal data is necessary to:

  • comply with a legal or regulatory obligation to which we are subject; or
  • establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

(v) Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes (as under the Marketing in the table above).

In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your personal information that override your rights and freedoms.

(vi) Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

  • if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
  • where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  • where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  • you have objected to our use of your personal data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

(vii) Request the transfer (data portability) of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

(viii) Withdraw your consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (which will generally not be the case). This will not however affect the lawfulness of any processing which we carried out before you withdrew your consent. Any processing activities that are not based on your consent will remain unaffected.

Kindly note that none of these data subject rights are absolute, and must generally be weighed against our own legal obligations and legitimate interests. If a decision is taken to override your data subject request, you will be informed of this by our data protection team along with the reasons for our decision.

 

Conclusion

We reserve the right to make changes to this Notice in the future, which will be duly notified to you. If you have any questions regarding this Notice, or if you would like to send us your comments, please contact us today or alternatively write to our dedicated data protection team, using the contact details indicated earlier on this web page.

 

 

 

IP address and cookie policy

Introduction

Welcome to PB&C’s ‘IP Address and Cookie Policy’ (or the “policy”).

PB&C of 5, Annunciation Square, Sliema, SLM 1425, Malta (“PB&C”, “we”; “us”; “our”) may collect two types of information about you resulting from your use of its website www.pbc.legal (the “website” or the “site”), as follows:

  • personal information, including your name and surname; and
  • aggregate information which is generated from the practices that we have in place regarding the ‘cookies’ and Internet Protocol Address (“IP address”) of the users of the website.

Our practices regarding the collection and processing of your personal information are set in our privacy notice.  Correspondingly, the practices that we have in place for the generation of aggregate information are described in this IP address and cookie policy. In order to be able to access and use the site, you must expressly agree and consent to the practices set out below.

Please read the following carefully to understand how and why the site uses your IP address and cookies. If you do not accept or agree to the practices described in this Policy, you must exit the site immediately!

 

IP address

 

What happens when you visit the site

Every time you connect to the internet or, if you use an always-on connection, such as broadband or ADSL, when you boot up or restart your computer, you are automatically assigned a unique identifying number known as an IP Address. This IP Address, which contains information regarding the location of your computer on the internet (your country of origin) and the name of your internet service provider (“ISP”), is automatically logged by the site.

 

What is an IP address?

When you first started your internet session (i.e. your computer connected to the internet), your computer was automatically assigned a unique number (normally in the region of 9 or 10 decimal numbers), known as an IP Address. This is your computer’s unique address on the internet. Without an IP Address, websites would not be able to deliver their content to you given that they would not be able to find your computer on the internet. Since each time you disconnect and reconnect to the internet a new IP Address is automatically assigned to your computer, IP Addresses are not inherently capable of identifying you as an individual (at least, by themselves and not combined with other identifiers). An IP Address does, however, contain information regarding the location of your computer on the internet (your country), and the name of your ISP.

 

How do we collect your IP address

Each time you visit a page on the site, your computer sends out a message asking for the requested content to be delivered. This message sent by your computer also encloses your IP Address as a form of “return address”, so that our website may find your computer in order to send it that requested content. Our web-server automatically logs all these messages.

 

What do we do with your IP address?

When we log your IP Address, the data collected is grouped up with the other logged IP Addresses in order to provide us with the statistics on the geographic location of visitors to our website, how long they stay on the site, which are the most viewed pages and for other statistical reasons that may be relevant for our business.

We gather your IP address automatically and store it in log files. These files also contain information relating to your browser type, ISP, operating system, date/time stamp, clickstream data and the files viewed on site. Collecting this type of information allows us to generate aggregate information for the purposes of developing the site, including in terms of overall user trends and activities online (such as the number of unique visitors, pages accessed and viewed most frequently or the search terms entered). It also allows us to administer the site, diagnose any potential server problems, analyse visitor trends and statistics, and generally helps us to provide you with a better internet experience.

IP Addresses are not stored for longer than necessary for the above stated purposes.

 

Cookies

What are ‘cookies’?

The site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users. They allow us to analyse trends and administer the site, to help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the site and to develop and improve the site at the same time.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. A cookie enables the website to remember users that have already visited. Without a cookie, every time you open a new web page, the server where that page is stored will treat you like a completely new visitor. Cookies allow us to remember your custom preferences such as your language preference and allow you to complete tasks without having to re-enter your information when browsing.

Cookies typically contain the name of the website that the cookie came from, the lifetime of the cookie as well as a randomly generated unique number. Websites typically use this number to ensure that you are recognised when you visit the website again, while you move from page to page within one website and that any information you have entered is remembered.

There are two types of cookies: session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are temporary cookies that remain in the cookie folder on your hard disk until you close your browser. Persistent cookies last much longer than session cookies as they remain on your hard disk until their preset lifetime expires or until they are removed. Our website only uses session cookies.

 

What information do we collect from cookies

Our website uses session cookies and web beacons to record session information including:

  • The date and duration of your visit to the website;
  • The web pages which you viewed during your visit;
  • Your IP address (see above);
  • The type and version of the browser which you used; and
  • Your computer’s Operating system.

We do not use cookies to collect or store any personal information.

We use the information that we gather in order to evaluate the website’s usage, content, navigability and composition. This statistical analysis allows us to improve our website, to generally make your internet experience more enjoyable and to provide a value-added service.

Please note that third parties (including advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical and performance cookies or targeting cookies.

Acceptance and blocking of cookies

You do not have to accept cookies to use our website.

You can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level, and can even block or reject all or some cookies by activating the relevant setting on your browser. If you do block or reject cookies, you may still be able to access and use the site, but your ability to use some of its features and areas, together with the services that you connect to through the site, may be limited or may simply not function properly.

Many browsers also allow you to browse privately, whereby cookies are automatically erased after you visit a site. The following is a list of the most common browsers and the way in which you can activate private browsing:

  • Internet Explorer 8 and later versions: In Private
  • Safari 2 and later versions: Private Navigation/Browsing
  • Firefox 3.5 and later versions: Private Navigation/Browsing
  • Google Chrome 10 and later versions: Incognito

Further information on cookies can be found on various sites such as www.allaboutcookies.com.

In that regard, we also use ‘web beacons’ or ‘action tags’ in conjunction with cookies. Web beacons are typically a minute and transparent graphic image that is placed on a website or in an email. Web beacons allow the website to record the simple actions of the user opening the page that contains the web beacon. Since web beacons are the same as any other content on a web page, you cannot opt out or refuse them, however, these can be rendered ineffective by changing your browser’s cookie settings to refuse cookies.

  • Social Media features and widgets

The site includes social media features. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on the site, and may set a cookie to enable this feature to function properly.

Any personal information that you provide via such social media applications may be collected and used by other members of that social media application and such interactions are governed by the privacy policies of the companies that provide the application. We do not have control over, or responsibility for, those companies or their use of your information.

 

Last Updated: 18 August, 2022