Cleerdin & Hamer Advocaten - Landdrostdreef 100

General Terms and Conditions Cleerdin & Hamer Advocaten LLP

1. Cleerdin & Hamer Advocaten LLP is a limited liability partnership subject to the English and Welsh law and registered by Companies House under registration number OC403629. Cleerdin & Hamer Advocaten LLP is statutory established at Bedfont Lane 262, Feltham, Middlesex TW14 9NU, United Kingdom, and has its headquarter at Van der Helstplein 3, 1072 PH, Amsterdam, the Netherlands and is registered in the Dutch trade register at the Dutch chamber of commerce under number 65026179.

2. These general terms and conditions apply to all assignments, including any follow-up instructions, adapted or additional assignments given to Cleerdin & Hamer LLP, its members or its employees by the clients of Cleerdin & Hamer LLP (hereinafter: Cleerdin & Hamer) Non-standard or supplementary conditions only apply after prior written record and consent. The conditions of these general terms also apply to any legal relationship that arises as a result of or in connection with the use of the websites maintained by Cleerdin & Hamer, with due regard for the usual disclaimers regarding the use of the Internet.

3. All assignments are assumed to solely have been given to and accepted by Cleerdin & Hamer. By way of derogation from Article 7:404, Article 7:407 sub 2 and Article 7:409 of the Dutch Civil Code, the partners, as well as those employed by the partnership, are not personally bound or liable, nor does the assignment end upon their death, whether or not the assignment has been given to a certain person.

4. All electronic means of communication, email included, count as communication in writing. Client acknowledges that electronic communication is not safe and can be intercepted, manipulated, infected, delayed or wrongly addressed or forwarded, be it by computer viruses, spam filters or other causes or means. The applicability of Article 6:227b sub 1 of the Dutch Civil Code, which regards the provision of information in electronic commercial traffic, and of Article 6:227c of the Dutch Civil Code, which regards the way contracts in electronic commercial traffic are made, is explicitly excluded if the client is acting in the exercise of a profession or business.

5. During the performance of the assignment, Cleerdin & Hamer will take all appropriate actions to maintain confidentiality and secrecy. Cleerdin & Hamer is the party responsible for the processing of personal data in the context of her services. Cleerdin & Hamer processes (collects, uses, saves supplies and destroys) personal data in compliance with her Privacy Policy (https://cleerdin-hamer.nl/privacy).

6. On the basis of applicable laws and regulations, including the ‘Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financieren van terrorism’ (‘Law to prevent money laundering and financing terrorism’, hereinafter: Wwft) Cleerdin & Hamer is obliged to identify its clients and their beneficiaries. Under circumstances, Cleerdin & Hamer is under a legal obligation to report unusual transactions in the sense on the Wwft to the competent authorities. The Wwft prohibits Cleerdin & Hamer to communicate the fact that such a report has been made to her clients or any other parties.

7. Unless agreed otherwise in writing, the fee is calculated according to the number of hours worked multiplied by the applicable tariff as set by Cleerdin & Hamer from time to time. On accepting the assignment (and after a change in the tariff: upon request), the applicable tariff at that time will be stated. Each year, as of 1 January, the tariff in current cases will be increased by the CBS price index for the Legal profession, by a minimum of 2%, rounded up or down to the nearest Euro.
In those cases where legal assistance is financed by the government, the personal contributions and other payment obligations according to applicable legislation apply. All costs paid on behalf of the client will be invoiced separately. To cover the fixed office expenses, a surcharge of 6% of the fee is levied.

All amounts mentioned by Cleerdin & Hamer in correspondence or other documents will be exclusive of VAT, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

8.  The work will be invoiced regularly. The payment term is 14 days from the invoice date. This term counts as the due date. Failing timely payment, Cleerdin & Hamer are entitled to take action to recover the debt and to charge statutory interest counting from the fifteenth (15th) day after the invoice date, without further notice of default. A payment on account for work carried out or to be carried out may be requested at any time. Work may be put on hold as long as invoices, by way of payment on account or otherwise, have not been paid for. All extrajudicial collection costs, including those for drafting and sending demands for payment, conducting settlement negotiations and other actions to prepare possible legal proceedings, as well as the legal costs, are payable by the client. The extrajudicial collection costs are calculated according to the Voorwerk II report (containing guidelines for calculating extrajudicial collection costs) and will be increased by EUR 25 registration costs.

9.  Assignments are completed solely on behalf of the client. Unless Cleerdin & Hamer have explicitly accepted this in writing beforehand, parties other than the commissioning party may not rely on the result of the work completed on behalf of the commissioning party or its performance, nor can they derive any rights therefrom.

10. Should Cleerdin & Hamer employ any third party for the purpose of the execution of the assignment, Cleerdin & Hamer will take proper care and precaution in selecting this third party. Any liability for shortcomings of third parties enlisted by Cleerdin & Hamer on behalf of the assignment is excluded. These general terms and conditions are also established on behalf of any third party, whether or not employed or enlisted during the execution of any commission, who is or may be liable as a result thereof.

11. All claims and rights held by the client towards Cleerdin & Hamer, its (individual) partners and employees, which follow from Cleerdin & Hamer’s activities, expire in every and all cases within one year after the client either became aware, or should reasonably have become aware, of said claims and rights.

12.  Any liability of Cleerdin & Hamer is limited to the amount payable under its professional liability insurance in the relevant case, increased by the amount of the insurance excess applicable to the relevant case. If for any reason no payment is forthcoming under the terms of said insurances, any liability will be limited to three times the fee paid by the commissioning party to Cleerdin & Hamer with regard to the assignment in question during the current calendar year, up to a maximum of EUR 230,000.

13. The document retention period (court documents, not being duplicate documents in criminal proceedings, relevant correspondence and agreements) is five years from the termination of the work. After the expiry of the time limit the files will be destroyed. The document retention period may only be derogated from in writing.

14. The Complaints Procedure is applicable to any activities performed by or assigned to the solicitors of Cleerdin & Hamer. This Complaints Procedure can be found on https://cleerdin-hamer.nl/klachtenregeling.

15. The legal relationship of the client and Cleerdin & Hamer is subject to Dutch law. Any conflict following from this relationship shall be submitted to the competent Court in Amsterdam, unmitigated the competence of Cleerdin & Hamer to submit such a conflict to any other competent Court.

16. These General Terms and Conditions are drafted in Dutch and translated into English. Should there be any contradiction between the original text Dutch and the English translation, or any contradiction in the interpretation thereof, the General Terms and Conditions in Dutch (Algemene Voorwaarden) will be leading.

17. Cleerdin & Hamer can adjust or alter these General Terms and Conditions without any prior notification. The adjusted or altered General Terms and Conditions are applicable to all legal relations between client and Cleerdin & Hamer thereafter.

These General Terms and Conditions are accessible on the website of Cleerdin & Hamer LLP: https://cleerdin-hamer.nl/algemene-voorwaarden.