Privacy Policy

With this data protection information, R & P Legal REGULATORY ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC LAW Dr. Ivana Mikesic, LL. M. (hereinafter "R & P Legal") informs all clients and data subjects about the processing of personal data by R & P Legal and the rights of data subjects. Data subjects are all those persons whose data and contacts are also processed by R & P Legal outside the client-lawyer relationship.

1. Scope of application

The data protection information of R & P Legal applies to any processing of personal data by R & P Legal. With regard to the terms used, R & P Legal refers to the definitions in Art. 4 of the European Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter "GDPR").

Responsible person and company data protection officer

The controller for the processing of personal data within the meaning of Art. 4 No. 7 DS-GVO is
R & P Legal
Berliner Straße 72
60311 Frankfurt
Telefon: +49 69 3487589 0
Fax: +49 69 3487589 99
You can reach the data protection officer appointed by R & P Legal at *dataprotection@randp-legal.com" or at the aforementioned postal address with the addition of “For the data protection officer".

3. Purposes and legal basis of the processing

The data is used within the framework of the client relationship, business contacts and for marketing and advertising purposes.

3.1. Processing for the purposes of the implementation of the mandate relationship

In the context of the initiation, conclusion, processing and settlement of the client-lawyer relationship, R & P Legal processes the information provided and required for this purpose by the client (master and contact data of the client or its contact persons and other parties involved, contract and billing data, communication with clients or their contact persons and other parties involved as well as all other information necessary for the processing of the request or the order). This data is primarily processed for the appropriate handling of the mandate. This also includes the processing of data for the purpose of

• The examination of conflicts of interest,
• The communication with the client and other parties involved in the course of establishing and processing the mandate,
• Identification in accordance with the Money Laundering Act (GwG - cf. section 3.2),
• The administrative processing (e.g. file management, contact management, billing of the mandate),
• The assertion, exercise or defence of mutual legal claims.

Within the scope of the client relationship, it may also be necessary for R & P Legal to collect personal data from publicly accessible sources (e.g. public registers, press, internet).

The data processing is necessary for the stated purposes according to Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. b DS-GVO.

Unless the data subject is not a direct client, but e.g. his/her employer or client is a contractual partner of R & P Legal, the processing of the data subject's data provided by the contractual partner within the scope of the client relationship is based on Art. 6 (1) sentence 1 lit. f DS-GVO.

The legitimate interest of R & P Legal to process this data results from the necessity to fulfil the order or to provide pre-contractual measures. The same applies to the processing of personal data of opponents, their legal representatives and representatives of other involved bodies (e.g. authorities, courts).

3.2. Fulfilment of legal obligations, in particular to prevent money laundering

If R & P Legal assists its clients in the planning or implementation of, for example, the purchase or sale of real estate or commercial enterprises or carries out financial or real estate transactions in the name of and for the account of the client (Section 2 (1) No. 10 GwG), the processing of information on the client, any persons acting on behalf of the client and beneficial owners is necessary, in particular for identification purposes (name, place and date of birth, nationality, photo ID, information on the business relationship and the contractual partner). In this context, it may also be necessary to collect and process information from publicly accessible sources (e.g. public registers, Internet). The legal basis for this data processing results from Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. c DS-GVO in conjunction with the relevant provisions from the GwG.

In addition, R & P Legal processes personal data for the fulfilment of further legal obligations such as e.g., for the fulfilment of professional, commercial, money laundering and tax documentation and retention obligations. The legal basis is Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. c DS-GVO in conjunction with the respective legal obligations.

3.3. Processing of business contacts

Insofar as R & P Legal receives business contact data in the context of events, business appointments, seminars or similar or in the context of a business initiation or commissioning, R & P Legal stores the contact data separately electronically (recording of business contacts / labelling) for the purposes of maintaining and managing the business contacts. The legal basis is Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. f DS-GVO. The legitimate interest results from the aforementioned purposes.

3.4. Marketing and advertising

R & P Legal also uses the contact data for the purpose of sending clients as well as other business contacts and potential interested parties event invitations, information brochures or other information on current legal developments and topics (e.g. on current court decisions, changes in the law, professional articles), news about R & P Legal or planned events. Insofar as the business contact details are publicly accessible (e.g. via the company website or professional networks such as Xing, LinkedIn) and events and/or services of R & P Legal may be of interest to the contacts concerned due to the business scope of the data subject, R & P Legal may also use and store these publicly accessible business contact details for the aforementioned purposes. Insofar as the data subject has given consent to R & P Legal, the use of the contact data for these purposes is based on Art. 6 (1) sentence 1 lit. a DS-GVO. Irrespective of this, the use may also take place under the conditions of Art. 6 (1) sentence 1 lit. f DS-GVO and the relevant provisions of the UWG on the basis of a legitimate interest of R & P Legal. This interest lies in client care and the acquisition of new business contacts. Insofar as the data subjects do not wish their contact data to be processed for the aforementioned marketing / advertising purposes, the data subjects may object or revoke their consent at any time (cf. sections 7 and 8). Unsubscribing from newsletters and event invitations is always also possible via a link provided for this purpose or an e-mail address in the newsletter.

3.5. Reference marketing / sector services

Insofar as clients have granted R & P Legal permission to report on individual mandates or projects in the relevant industry services for commercial law firms (e.g. JUVE, Legal500, Chambers), R & P Legal reserves the right to name clients or their contact persons as reference persons as well as to transmit their business contact data (first and last name, title, company name and, if applicable, address, department, position, e-mail address and telephone number) to the editorial offices of the respective industry services. The purpose of this disclosure is to enable the industry services to contact the reference persons and ask them about their cooperation with R & P Legal.

Insofar as data subjects have expressly given consent to R & P Legal to pass on the reference contact data to the industry services, the legal basis is Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. a, Art. 7 DS-GVO.

The data subjects can object to the disclosure of the data or revoke their consent at any time.

3.6. Attendance at events

When participating in an event organised by R & P Legal, R & P Legal processes the contact and registration data for the organisation and implementation of the event, in particular for the creation of attendance lists, name badges and certificates, guest management, billing of the participation fee, if applicable, and sending of materials.

In the case of joint events with cooperation partners, R & P Legal passes on the attendance lists (name, title, company, position) to the respective partner. The legal basis is Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. b and lit. f DS-GVO. The legitimate interest results from the aforementioned purposes.

3.7. IT security

In order to ensure the security, stability, integrity and functionality of the IT systems and IT operations as well as the security of the stored data and data processing operations at R & P Legal, it may be necessary to process the personal data stored in the IT systems of R & P Legal (e.g. when creating back-ups or conducting tests). The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. f DS-GVO. The legitimate interest results from the aforementioned purposes.

With regard to communication by e-mail, R & P Legal points out the associated risks to confidentiality, e.g. in the event of unauthorised access/interception of the e-mail or in the absence of support for security measures in the e-mail server of the recipient(s). At the request of the recipient, R & P Legal will use content encryption (end-to-end encryption) when sending particularly sensitive data.

4. Duration of storage

R & P Legal will generally store personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the processing purposes described in this Privacy Notice or legal requirements and retention obligations.

Hand files must be kept by way of example until the expiry of the retention period applicable to lawyers pursuant to Section 50 (1) BRAO (6 years after the end of the calendar year in which the mandate was terminated).

Further essential retention obligations result from commercial law (esp. retention of commercial and business letters for 6 years and of accounting documents for 10 years, § 257 HGB), tax law (esp. retention of accounting documents for 10 years and of other tax-relevant documents for 6 years, § 147 AO) and money laundering law (retention of records and other documents within the meaning of § 8 AO). Retention of accounting vouchers for 10 years and of other tax-relevant documents for 6 years, § 147 AO) and money laundering law (retention of records and other documents within the meaning of § 8 para. 1 to 3 GwG for 5 years from the end of the calendar year in which the business relationship was terminated, § 8 para. 4 GwG).

After expiry of the statutory retention obligations, the data and documents will be deleted or destroyed, unless R & P Legal needs them to protect its own legal interests, taking into account the limitation rule in Section 199 (3) of the German Civil Code (BGB) (generally up to 10 years, beginning with the end of the year in which the respective mandate was terminated), or if the data subject has consented to longer storage.

5. Recipients and categories of recipients

In addition to the recipients mentioned in section 3, personal data will be passed on to third parties or other bodies insofar as this is necessary for the proper processing of the mandate and the handling of the mandate relationship. This includes in particular the disclosure to opposing parties, their representatives (e.g. lawyers), courts, authorities and other public bodies or private bodies such as experts. If the mandate has a corresponding foreign connection, it may be necessary to pass it on to bodies in countries outside the EU or the EEA. The lawyer's duty of confidentiality remains unaffected.

R & P Legal also uses external service providers who have access to personal data in the course of their work for R & P Legal (e.g. translators, postal / transport services, IT service providers, waste disposal companies). The commissioning only takes place in accordance with the relevant professional and data protection regulations.

6. Data subjects' rights

In relation to the processing of personal data, data subjects have the following rights under the GDPR:

Right of access: Pursuant to Art. 15 of the GDPR, data subjects may at any time request information about their personal data processed by R & P Legal and information listed in Art. 15 (1) and (2) of the GDPR in connection with the processing. As part of their right of access, data subjects have the right to request a copy of their personal data under the conditions of Art. 15 (3) DSGVO. The restrictions on the right to information pursuant to Art. 15 (4) DSGVO, Section 34 BDSG must be observed.

Right to rectification: Pursuant to Art. 16 DSGVO, data subjects may request the immediate rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data held by R & P Legal.

Right to erasure: Pursuant to Art. 17 DSGVO, data subjects may request the erasure of their personal data stored by R & P Legal, unless the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation or for the assertion, exercise or defence of legal claims. The further restrictions of Art. 17 (3) DSGVO, § 35 BDSG must be observed.

Right to restriction of processing: Under the conditions of Art. 18 GDPR, data subjects may request the restriction of the processing of their personal data. In this case, their data - apart from being stored - may only be processed with your consent or under the conditions of Art. 18 (2) DSGVO.

Right to data portability: Subject to the conditions of Art. 20 DSGVO, data subjects have the right to receive their personal data provided to R & P Legal in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format or, where technically feasible, to request that it be transferred directly to another controller.

If data subjects wish to exercise the rights set out above, they may contact the Data Protection Officer of R & P Legal (point 2).

Recht auf Berichtigung: Gemäß Art. 16 DSGVO können betroffenen Personen die unverzügliche Berichtigung unrichtiger oder Vervollständigung ihrer bei R & P Legal gespeicherten personenbezogenen Daten verlangen.

7. Withdrawal of a granted consent

Pursuant to Art. 7 (3) DS-GVO, data subjects are entitled to revoke consent they have given to R & P Legal at any time and free of charge. Data subjects may revoke their consent at any time in text form (e.g. by e-mail, fax, letter) to the contact details stated in section 2.

Insofar as data subjects no longer wish their data to be processed for advertising / marketing purposes, the data subjects may also send their revocation directly to dataprotection@randp-legal.com. Unsubscribing from newsletters is also possible via a link provided for this purpose in the newsletter or a corresponding e-mail address.

The revocation has the consequence that R & P Legal may no longer carry out the data processing based on this consent in the future. The revocation of consent does not affect the lawfulness of the data processing carried out on the basis of the consent until the revocation.

8. Right of objection

Insofar as personal data are processed on the basis of legitimate interests pursuant to Art. 6 (1) sentence 1 lit. f DS-GVO or in the public interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) sentence 1 lit. e DS-GVO, data subjects have the right to object to the processing of personal data relating to them at any time. R & P Legal shall examine the objection without undue delay.

In the event of a justified objection, R & P Legal shall refrain from any further processing of the data concerned, unless such processing is necessary for compelling legitimate reasons that override the interests and rights of the data subject, or for the assertion, exercise, or defence of legal claims. The right to object is subject to the restrictions of § 36 BDSG.

Insofar as the personal data are processed for the purposes of direct marketing, acquisition or recruiting without reference to a mandate, data subjects have the right to object unreservedly to the processing of their data at any time. In this case, it is not necessary to specify a particular situation. This also applies to profiling insofar as it is related to such direct marketing or corresponding measure. In the event of an objection, processing for direct marketing purposes shall cease immediately.

The objection can be made at any time in text form, e.g. by e-mail to dataprotection@randp-legal.com, by fax to +49 3487589 99 or by post to the address stated under point 2. Unsubscribing from newsletters is also possible via a link provided for this purpose or a corresponding e-mail in the newsletter. This does not incur any costs other than the transmission costs according to the basic rates.

9. Complaints to the supervisory authority

If a data subject is of the opinion that the processing of his or her personal data by R & P Legal violates a provision of data protection law, a data subject also has the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority pursuant to Article 77 of the GDPR. As a rule, data subjects may address this to the supervisory authority of their usual place of residence, their place of work or the place of the alleged breach. In Hesse, the competent supervisory authority is the Hessian Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, who can be contacted at: Der Hessische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, Postfach 3163, 65021 Wiesbaden, phone: +496111408-0, e-mail: poststelle@datenschutz.hessen.de.