Legal notice

The use of the Van Bael & Bellis website is subject to the provisions of this Legal Notice. In particular, users acknowledge that Van Bael & Bellis may process their personal data in accordance with the Privacy statement below.

Disclaimer

All the materials and information included on the Van Bael & Bellis website are provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice in relation to any specific facts or circumstances.

Van Bael & Bellis does not endorse, verify or warrant the accuracy of the information found in external websites to which visitors of this website are referred to complement information provided on this website.

Attorney-client relationship

While you are welcome to contact us via mail, telephone, telefax, e-mail or other means, you should note that doing so will not in itself create any attorney-client relationship. 

Copyright notice

Unless indicated otherwise, Van Bael & Bellis holds all copyrights on the design and contents of this website. Any reproduction, in whole or in part, of the Van Bael & Bellis website or its contents in whatever form, including photocopy, photography, microfilm, magnetic strip, disc or other electronic means, other than for individual use, is prohibited without the prior written approval of Van Bael & Bellis. Permission to reproduce parts of the content of this website for individual use does not extend to the incorporation of the material in any work or publication, whether in hard copy, electronic or any other form. 

Security

Van Bael & Bellis has no control over the Internet or parts of the Internet through which your personal data are transferred to the Van Bael & Bellis website. Therefore, you are solely responsible for the security of your personal data until they are stored and protected by the firewall on the Van Bael & Bellis server.
                                    
Please note that any e-mail messages sent to Van Bael & Bellis e-mail accounts will be automatically scanned for viruses and spam by a third party mail provider. This mail provider may in exceptional cases route your e-mails via the Internet to third countries outside the EU that are not providing an adequate level of protection.

Terms of Business

The following standard terms of business apply to the relationship between Van Bael & Bellis and its clients.

Invoices

Itemised invoices are, in principle, issued on a monthly basis to the client.  Should you wish so, we can also issue a final invoice upon completion of the services.  Further, we may also provide you with regular overviews of our work streams with a view to monitoring those should you wish so. Invoices are final for the period to which they relate, save that we reserve the right to bill in a later period fees and expenses incurred but not invoiced. 

Payment

Payment in full must be received in Euro within thirty days after the date of each invoice, by transfer of the amount payable into the bank account stated on the invoice.  Van Bael & Bellis reserves the right to charge an administrative penalty of EUR 250 and late payment interest of 1% per month on all unpaid amounts after expiry of this thirty-day period.

Within the framework of this assignment and our services, Van Bael & Bellis shall at all times (i) be entitled to compensate any outstanding and due amounts under invoices issued to you by Van Bael & Bellis, including with moneys wired by you, your affiliates or any other third party within the framework of this assignment into the third-party account of Van Bael & Bellis, and (ii) have a pledge on your receivables.  Prior to compensating or exercising such pledge, Van Bael & Bellis shall inform you in writing before doing so.

Limitation of liability

Any liability for loss arising from, or in connection with, a breach of contract or wrongful act of Van Bael & Bellis (including its partners, associates, employees or other persons engaged by Van Bael & Bellis) or based on any other legal ground, shall be limited to the amount paid out in the matter concerned under the professional liability insurance policy of Van Bael & Bellis, plus the amount of the deductible under that insurance policy.  In the event that the insurer declines to pay a claim, the liability for the total loss arising out of, or connected with, our services shall be limited to the amount received by Van Bael & Bellis from you for our services.  You can claim such damages exclusively from Van Bael & Bellis as an entity.  Any claims for damages against partners, associates, employees or other persons engaged by Van Bael & Bellis, or shareholders and/or directors of the professional corporations through which certain partners and associates perform their services, are excluded.  The above-mentioned partners, associates, employees, shareholders, directors and other persons may at all times invoke the provisions of these terms and conditions for their own benefit as third-party beneficiaries of these clauses.

We shall not be liable for any loss caused by any third party consultants or other service providers engaged on your behalf or with your approval with a view to providing the services to you or to enabling us to provide the services to you, including correspondent firms as the case may be.

Confidentiality

Van Bael & Bellis will keep information received from you in strictest confidence in accordance with the applicable rules of the Brussels Bar and subject to any statutory obligations on Van Bael & Bellis to disclose information.  Whilst respecting its confidentiality obligations, you agree that we can communicate information received from you to Van Bael & Bellis (London) LLP, any third-party consultants and other service providers, including insurers and correspondent firms that are working on the same matter, as well as disclose confidential information relating to your affairs if required to do so by law or by the rules of any relevant professional body or regulator.

If we make a disclosure in relation to any of your engagements, we may be unable to tell you that a disclosure has been made, and we may have to stop working on your engagement for a period of time, and may not be able to tell you why.  Additional information could be required about the source of funds and/or wealth for a transaction, and we may refuse to proceed if not satisfied with all the information you provide in that regard.

Whilst respecting confidentiality and embargo rules, you agree that we may issue a press release on our website and through our social media describing our services relating to this assignment, and/or to use “tomb-stone” information regarding our services relating to this assignment in our marketing or track-record documents, and/or to communicate the relevant information about our services and this assignment (such as our role) to legal directories and league-table data gatherers or providers.

Data protection compliance

Van Bael & Bellis will process all personal data received for provision of its services in compliance with Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (the GDPR) and any other applicable legislation.

We assume that, for all personal data provided by you to Van Bael & Bellis, you will have informed the relevant data subjects of the processing of their personal data in accordance with Articles 13 and 14 of the GDPR. Should you need more information about your obligations in this regard, please feel free to contact us.

Where applicable, we will provide access by data subjects to their personal data and allow them to exercise their rights under the GDPR.  If you should receive a request from a data subject related to the processing of his or her personal data by Van Bael & Bellis, you should inform Van Bael & Bellis of this request by e-mail to [email protected].  Conversely, we will inform you about any request that we receive from data subjects relating to data received from you in the context of this engagement.

We will ensure adequate technical and organisational protection of any personal data we receive and report any breaches of security affecting the personal data.  Conversely, if you receive any personal data from us, these should be treated in compliance with the GDPR, including adequate technical and organisational protection measures and any breaches of security affecting such data should immediately be reported to us.

Assistance in legal compliance

You are required to provide promptly any information required by Van Bael & Bellis, and to take such other steps as are reasonably required by Van Bael & Bellis, to enable Van Bael & Bellis to fulfil its legal obligations in relation to the services, including, but not limited to, under applicable money laundering and VAT legislation.  Van Bael & Bellis cannot be held liable should you not cooperate, or should any information received from you be erroneous, and any charges or fines that would be imposed on Van Bael & Bellis as a result of such omission to cooperate or any such erroneous information, shall be charged to you.

Termination

Either party may terminate, at any time, the provision of the services.  Our relationship will be considered terminated upon completion of the specific services that you have retained us to perform or, if open-ended services are agreed upon, when more than six months have elapsed from the last time you requested and we furnished any billable services to you.  If you later retain us to perform further or additional services, our relationship will be revived, subject to these and any subsequent written terms. 

The fact we may inform you from time-to-time of developments in the law which we believe may be of interest to you, should not be understood as revival of the relationship.  Moreover, we have no obligation to inform you of such developments in the law unless we are engaged in writing to do so.

Termination of the provision of the services, regardless of which party terminates, does not affect (i) your obligation to pay (a) our fees, costs and disbursements incurred up to the point in time when the provision of the services is terminated, and (b) any necessary work undertaken by us following the termination of the provision of the services, and (ii) the provisions of these terms, which shall remain in full force after the date of termination of the provision of the services.

Communication

Any communications can be validly addressed by us to the person(s) in charge of the matter within the client, and by the client to the partner in charge of the matter within Van Bael & Bellis.

Governing law and jurisdiction

All agreements and relationships with Van Bael & Bellis are subject to the laws of Belgium.  Any disputes between you and Van Bael & Bellis shall be submitted to the competent courts in Brussels, without prejudice to the right for the parties to refer to the mediation services of the Brussels Bar.

Governing law

This legal notice is governed by Belgian law. Any dispute arising in connection with this website shall be subject to the sole jurisdiction of the Brussels courts.

Contact information

Van Bael & Bellis SRL / BV
Glaverbel Building
Chaussée de la Hulpe 166 Terhulpsesteenweg
B-1170 Brussels
Belgium
T: +32 (0)2 647 73 50
F: +32 (0)2 640 64 99
E: [email protected]

Company number: 0428.460.282
VAT number: BE0428.460.282
Register of legal entities: Brussels

Geneva Office:

26, boulevard des Philosophes
CH-1205 Geneva
Switzerland
T: +41 (0)22 320 90 20
F: +41 (0)22 320 94 20
E: [email protected]

London Office:

Holborn Gate,

330 High Holborn

WC1V 7QH
T: +44 (0)20 7406 1471
E:  [email protected]

SRA number: 80 14 40 
VAT number: GB347.0264.11

Professional associations

The Belgian lawyers practicing in the Brussels and Geneva offices of Van Bael & Bellis are members of the Brussels Bar, List A, under the professional title “advocaat” or “avocat”.

The Van Bael & Bellis offices also include a number of lawyers from other jurisdictions who are members of or are registered with the Brussels Bar, List E or B, and are members of foreign Bars.

A mention of each Van Bael & Bellis lawyer’s bar admission(s) can be found in his/her biography in the “Lawyers” section of this website.

The professional rules and codes of conduct of the Brussels Bar can be found at www.baliebrussel.be and www.barreaudebruxelles.be

Van Bael & Bellis (London) LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC431476. It is a law firm authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.  A list of the names of the members of Van Bael & Bellis (London) LLP and their professional qualifications is open to inspection at its registered office, Holborn Gate, 330 High Holborn, WC1V 7QH and such persons are either solicitors or registered European lawyers.

https://www.vbb.com/van-bael-bellis-london