Disclaimer and Privacy Policy
DISCLAIMER
The information displayed on our website is provided for general information purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice from any lawyer or representative of our firm.
Professional advice should therefore be sought before any action is taken based on the information displayed on this website.
Mendelson Attorneys Inc disclaims any responsibility for positions taken without due consultation with our attorneys, and no person shall have any claim of any nature whatsoever arising out of, or in connection with, the contents of this website against Mendelson Attorneys Inc and/or any of its directors and/or employees.
Any email correspondence sent by Mendelson Attorneys Inc and/or any of its directors and/or employees are intended for the confidential use of the intended recipient(s) and may be protected by legal privilege. Review, dissemination, distribution, or copying is strictly prohibited if you are not the intended recipient. If you receive any correspondence from us, which you believe you have received in error, please do not read it. Rather, please notify the sender at the relevant email address and delete the email from your system. Mendelson Attorneys Inc accepts no liability for the accuracy of the information or advice contained in any email correspondence, nor any loss arising from reliance on it.
WE WILL NEVER NOTIFY YOU OF A CHANGE OF OUR BANKING DETAILS VIA EMAIL
PRIVACY POLICY
Introduction
We respect your right to privacy.
Where we refer to “personal information”, it means “personal information” as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (“POPI“), and “personal data” as per the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“the GDPR“). Personal information includes any information about a person that can be used to identify a person directly or indirectly by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity, including the name, race, gender, marital status, address and identifying number of a person, symbol, e-mail address, physical address, telephone number, location information, online identifier or other particular assignment to the person, recruitment details, financial history and the like. It also includes opinions about individuals as well as facts and also applies to corporate contacts. POPI includes the personal information of juristic persons in its ambit – so we will protect the personal information of juristic persons in the same manner as any other person’s personal information.
Where applicable, this privacy policy applies in addition to any other agreement that you enter into with us, including the letter of engagement and/or mandate and fee agreement that you agree to when you become our client.
For any comments or queries relating to this policy, please contact our director, Jeff Mendelson at [email protected]
The personal information we collect
We collect, amongst others, the following personal information:
The personal information defined above
Personal information concerning the religious or philosophical beliefs, race or ethnic origin, trade union membership, political persuasion, health, sex life or biometric information of a data subject; or the criminal behaviour of a data subject to the extent that such information relates to the alleged commission by a data subject of any offence; or any proceedings in respect of any offence allegedly committed by a data subject or the disposal of such proceedings.
Personal details, such as your name, email address or telephone number;
Billing information, such as relevant payment information and VAT registration number; and
Legally required information, which includes any additional information that the law requires from us to verify your identity.
Records of correspondence or enquiries from you or anyone acting on your behalf;
Details of transactions you carry out with us;
Details of contracts, sales or leases you enter into with us;
Sensitive or special categories of Personal Information, including biometric information, such as Images, fingerprints and voiceprints.
Any other Records as determined by Mendelson Attorneys from time to time.
How we collect personal information
Directly from you when you use our website or any of our services, or if we request it from you.
We may also collect your Personal Information from your appointed agent, any regulator, or other Third Party that may hold such information.
Through the use of cookies, which will mainly be used to identify visitors that return to our website. You can prevent us from doing this through a setting on your browser. Cookies only store information from your browser and cannot access data on your computer.
Use of your personal information
We may use, transfer or disclose your personal information for the purposes of:
Providing you with the services, products or offerings you have requested, and notifying you about important changes to these services, products or offerings;
Managing your account or relationship and complying with your instructions or requests;
Detecting and preventing fraud and money laundering and/or in the interest of security and crime prevention;
Assessing and dealing with complaints and requests;
Operational, marketing, auditing, legal and record keeping requirements;
Verifying your identity or the identity of your beneficial owner;
We may need to transfer your information to service providers in countries outside South Africa, in which case it will fully comply with applicable South African data protection legislation comprising POPIA and PAIA;
Complying with Applicable Laws, including lawful requests for information received from local or foreign law enforcement, government and tax collection agencies;
Recording and/or monitoring your telephone calls and Electronic Correspondence to/with us in order to accurately carry out your instructions and requests, to use as evidence and in the interests of crime prevention;
Conducting market research and providing you with information about our products or services from time to time via email, telephone or other means (for example, events);
Where you have unsubscribed from certain direct marketing communications, ensuring that we do not send such direct marketing to you again;
Disclosing your Personal Information to third for reasons set out in this Policy or where it is not unlawful to do so;
Monitoring, keeping record of and having access to all forms of correspondence or communications received by or sent from us or any of our employees, agents or contractors, including monitoring, recording and using as evidence all telephone communications between you and us;
Improving or evaluating the effectiveness of our business or products, services or offerings; and
Prevention and control of any disease.
We may retain your Personal Information indefinitely, unless you object, in which case we will only retain it if we are permitted or required to do so in terms of Applicable Laws. However, as a general rule, we will retain your information in accordance with retention periods set out in applicable laws, unless we deem it necessary to retain it for longer for a lawful purpose (for example, for the purposes of complaints handling, legal processes and proceedings).
Marketing
When you become a client, you will be added to our mailing list. We use this mailing list to send you important information about our business, the services we offer, legal developments, news and event invitations. You can also add yourself to our mailing list on our website.
You can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time which will result in us no longer marketing to you. We include a link in every marketing communication allowing you to unsubscribe from marketing communication and you can email us to ask us to remove you from our mailing list.
If you unsubscribe from our mailing list, we may still contact you in other instances, such as in the course of providing you with services or to collect outstanding fees. In these instances, the relevant practitioner will contact you directly and not through the mailing list.
Sharing your personal information
We will only share your personal information for purposes of providing services to you or any other legitimate business purpose relating to our business activities, including but not limited to, the protection of our or your rights, complaints, marketing, or enforcing any agreement between us.
Where required for our business operations, we may share your personal information with our service providers. We only share information with service providers after we enter into an agreement with the service provider to regulate the way in which the personal information will be secured.
Where the law requires us to do so, we may also share your personal information with third party service providers, agents, contractors, employees, law enforcement agencies or business affiliates. We will only share your personal information in these instances where it is necessary for us to do so and only to the extent that your personal information is needed for such third parties to perform their services or obligations.
We may transfer your information cross border for our legitimate business purposes, such as for cloud storage and for our billing practices. All information transfers will comply with the applicable laws.
Security
We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected. We protect and manage personal information that we hold about you by using electronic and computer safeguards like firewalls, data encryption, and physical and electronic access control to our buildings. We only authorise access to personal information to those employees who require it to fulfil their designated responsibilities.
Links on our website
We may include links to other third party websites which do not fall under our supervision. We cannot accept any responsibility for your privacy or the content of these websites, but we display these links to make it easier for you to find information about specific subjects.
Right to object
You may, on reasonable grounds, object to us using your personal information. If you object, we will stop using your personal information, except if the law allows its use.
Children’s personal information and special personal information
We do not intentionally collect or use personal information of children (persons under the age of 18 years), unless with express consent of a parent or guardian or if the law otherwise allows or requires us to process such personal information.
Quality and access to your personal information
We want to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct any personal information that you think is inaccurate or request us to remove your information by sending an email to [email protected].
You have the right to request us to provide you with personal information that we hold about you. You must contact us directly to do so or send an email to [email protected]
You have a right in certain circumstances to request the destruction or deletion of and, where applicable, to obtain restriction on the processing of Personal Information held about you. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact us using the contact details set out above.
You have a right to object on reasonable grounds to the processing of your Personal Information where the processing is carried out in order to protect our legitimate interests or your legitimate interests, unless the law provides for such processing.
Retention of Information
We retain personal information in accordance with the required retention periods in law or for legitimate business purposes. We may keep personal information indefinitely in a de-identified format for statistical purposes. This privacy policy also applies when we retain your personal information.
Security breach
We will report any security breach to the Information Regulator and to the individuals or companies involved. If you want to report any concerns about our privacy practices or if you suspect any breach regarding your personal information, kindly notify us by sending an email to [email protected].
Lodging a complaint
If you believe we are using your personal information unlawfully, please let us know first (at [email protected] or 0836344003). You may lodge a complaint to the Information Regulator (South Africa) with the following contact details:
Website: https://www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/index.html.
Address: SALU Building, 316 Thabo Sehume Street, Pretoria.
Contact number: 012 406 4818.
Fax number: 086 500 3351.
Email: [email protected].
If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the following details may be used for the relevant regulatory authority.
GDPR: The European Commission: Online complaint procedure: https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/contact/problems-and-complaints/how-make-complaint-eu-level/submit-complaint_en
Address: European Commission, Secretary-General,B-1049 Brussels, BELGIUM
Fax: 3222964335
The independent Data Protection Authority (“DPA“) per member state Website listing all DPA’s per member state: https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/structure/data-protection-authorities/index_en.htm
Data Protection Act, 1998 (UK) The Information Commissioner’s Office Website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
Tel: 0303 123 1113
The information displayed on our website is provided for general information purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice from any lawyer or representative of our firm.
Professional advice should therefore be sought before any action is taken based on the information displayed on this website.
Mendelson Attorneys Inc disclaims any responsibility for positions taken without due consultation with our attorneys, and no person shall have any claim of any nature whatsoever arising out of, or in connection with, the contents of this website against Mendelson Attorneys Inc and/or any of its directors and/or employees.
Any email correspondence sent by Mendelson Attorneys Inc and/or any of its directors and/or employees are intended for the confidential use of the intended recipient(s) and may be protected by legal privilege. Review, dissemination, distribution, or copying is strictly prohibited if you are not the intended recipient. If you receive any correspondence from us, which you believe you have received in error, please do not read it. Rather, please notify the sender at the relevant email address and delete the email from your system. Mendelson Attorneys Inc accepts no liability for the accuracy of the information or advice contained in any email correspondence, nor any loss arising from reliance on it.
WE WILL NEVER NOTIFY YOU OF A CHANGE OF OUR BANKING DETAILS VIA EMAIL
PRIVACY POLICY
Introduction
We respect your right to privacy.
Where we refer to “personal information”, it means “personal information” as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (“POPI“), and “personal data” as per the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“the GDPR“). Personal information includes any information about a person that can be used to identify a person directly or indirectly by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity, including the name, race, gender, marital status, address and identifying number of a person, symbol, e-mail address, physical address, telephone number, location information, online identifier or other particular assignment to the person, recruitment details, financial history and the like. It also includes opinions about individuals as well as facts and also applies to corporate contacts. POPI includes the personal information of juristic persons in its ambit – so we will protect the personal information of juristic persons in the same manner as any other person’s personal information.
Where applicable, this privacy policy applies in addition to any other agreement that you enter into with us, including the letter of engagement and/or mandate and fee agreement that you agree to when you become our client.
For any comments or queries relating to this policy, please contact our director, Jeff Mendelson at [email protected]
The personal information we collect
We collect, amongst others, the following personal information:
The personal information defined above
Personal information concerning the religious or philosophical beliefs, race or ethnic origin, trade union membership, political persuasion, health, sex life or biometric information of a data subject; or the criminal behaviour of a data subject to the extent that such information relates to the alleged commission by a data subject of any offence; or any proceedings in respect of any offence allegedly committed by a data subject or the disposal of such proceedings.
Personal details, such as your name, email address or telephone number;
Billing information, such as relevant payment information and VAT registration number; and
Legally required information, which includes any additional information that the law requires from us to verify your identity.
Records of correspondence or enquiries from you or anyone acting on your behalf;
Details of transactions you carry out with us;
Details of contracts, sales or leases you enter into with us;
Sensitive or special categories of Personal Information, including biometric information, such as Images, fingerprints and voiceprints.
Any other Records as determined by Mendelson Attorneys from time to time.
How we collect personal information
Directly from you when you use our website or any of our services, or if we request it from you.
We may also collect your Personal Information from your appointed agent, any regulator, or other Third Party that may hold such information.
Through the use of cookies, which will mainly be used to identify visitors that return to our website. You can prevent us from doing this through a setting on your browser. Cookies only store information from your browser and cannot access data on your computer.
Use of your personal information
We may use, transfer or disclose your personal information for the purposes of:
Providing you with the services, products or offerings you have requested, and notifying you about important changes to these services, products or offerings;
Managing your account or relationship and complying with your instructions or requests;
Detecting and preventing fraud and money laundering and/or in the interest of security and crime prevention;
Assessing and dealing with complaints and requests;
Operational, marketing, auditing, legal and record keeping requirements;
Verifying your identity or the identity of your beneficial owner;
We may need to transfer your information to service providers in countries outside South Africa, in which case it will fully comply with applicable South African data protection legislation comprising POPIA and PAIA;
Complying with Applicable Laws, including lawful requests for information received from local or foreign law enforcement, government and tax collection agencies;
Recording and/or monitoring your telephone calls and Electronic Correspondence to/with us in order to accurately carry out your instructions and requests, to use as evidence and in the interests of crime prevention;
Conducting market research and providing you with information about our products or services from time to time via email, telephone or other means (for example, events);
Where you have unsubscribed from certain direct marketing communications, ensuring that we do not send such direct marketing to you again;
Disclosing your Personal Information to third for reasons set out in this Policy or where it is not unlawful to do so;
Monitoring, keeping record of and having access to all forms of correspondence or communications received by or sent from us or any of our employees, agents or contractors, including monitoring, recording and using as evidence all telephone communications between you and us;
Improving or evaluating the effectiveness of our business or products, services or offerings; and
Prevention and control of any disease.
We may retain your Personal Information indefinitely, unless you object, in which case we will only retain it if we are permitted or required to do so in terms of Applicable Laws. However, as a general rule, we will retain your information in accordance with retention periods set out in applicable laws, unless we deem it necessary to retain it for longer for a lawful purpose (for example, for the purposes of complaints handling, legal processes and proceedings).
Marketing
When you become a client, you will be added to our mailing list. We use this mailing list to send you important information about our business, the services we offer, legal developments, news and event invitations. You can also add yourself to our mailing list on our website.
You can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time which will result in us no longer marketing to you. We include a link in every marketing communication allowing you to unsubscribe from marketing communication and you can email us to ask us to remove you from our mailing list.
If you unsubscribe from our mailing list, we may still contact you in other instances, such as in the course of providing you with services or to collect outstanding fees. In these instances, the relevant practitioner will contact you directly and not through the mailing list.
Sharing your personal information
We will only share your personal information for purposes of providing services to you or any other legitimate business purpose relating to our business activities, including but not limited to, the protection of our or your rights, complaints, marketing, or enforcing any agreement between us.
Where required for our business operations, we may share your personal information with our service providers. We only share information with service providers after we enter into an agreement with the service provider to regulate the way in which the personal information will be secured.
Where the law requires us to do so, we may also share your personal information with third party service providers, agents, contractors, employees, law enforcement agencies or business affiliates. We will only share your personal information in these instances where it is necessary for us to do so and only to the extent that your personal information is needed for such third parties to perform their services or obligations.
We may transfer your information cross border for our legitimate business purposes, such as for cloud storage and for our billing practices. All information transfers will comply with the applicable laws.
Security
We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected. We protect and manage personal information that we hold about you by using electronic and computer safeguards like firewalls, data encryption, and physical and electronic access control to our buildings. We only authorise access to personal information to those employees who require it to fulfil their designated responsibilities.
Links on our website
We may include links to other third party websites which do not fall under our supervision. We cannot accept any responsibility for your privacy or the content of these websites, but we display these links to make it easier for you to find information about specific subjects.
Right to object
You may, on reasonable grounds, object to us using your personal information. If you object, we will stop using your personal information, except if the law allows its use.
Children’s personal information and special personal information
We do not intentionally collect or use personal information of children (persons under the age of 18 years), unless with express consent of a parent or guardian or if the law otherwise allows or requires us to process such personal information.
Quality and access to your personal information
We want to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct any personal information that you think is inaccurate or request us to remove your information by sending an email to [email protected].
You have the right to request us to provide you with personal information that we hold about you. You must contact us directly to do so or send an email to [email protected]
You have a right in certain circumstances to request the destruction or deletion of and, where applicable, to obtain restriction on the processing of Personal Information held about you. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact us using the contact details set out above.
You have a right to object on reasonable grounds to the processing of your Personal Information where the processing is carried out in order to protect our legitimate interests or your legitimate interests, unless the law provides for such processing.
Retention of Information
We retain personal information in accordance with the required retention periods in law or for legitimate business purposes. We may keep personal information indefinitely in a de-identified format for statistical purposes. This privacy policy also applies when we retain your personal information.
Security breach
We will report any security breach to the Information Regulator and to the individuals or companies involved. If you want to report any concerns about our privacy practices or if you suspect any breach regarding your personal information, kindly notify us by sending an email to [email protected].
Lodging a complaint
If you believe we are using your personal information unlawfully, please let us know first (at [email protected] or 0836344003). You may lodge a complaint to the Information Regulator (South Africa) with the following contact details:
Website: https://www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/index.html.
Address: SALU Building, 316 Thabo Sehume Street, Pretoria.
Contact number: 012 406 4818.
Fax number: 086 500 3351.
Email: [email protected].
If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the following details may be used for the relevant regulatory authority.
GDPR: The European Commission: Online complaint procedure: https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/contact/problems-and-complaints/how-make-complaint-eu-level/submit-complaint_en
Address: European Commission, Secretary-General,B-1049 Brussels, BELGIUM
Fax: 3222964335
The independent Data Protection Authority (“DPA“) per member state Website listing all DPA’s per member state: https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/structure/data-protection-authorities/index_en.htm
Data Protection Act, 1998 (UK) The Information Commissioner’s Office Website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
Tel: 0303 123 1113
