Data protection

Who we are

The con­trol­ler of your per­son­al data is Advestra Ltd. You can noti­fy us of any data pro­tec­tion con­cerns at the fol­low­ing address: Urani­as­trasse 9, 8001 Zurich, Switzer­land, dataprotection@​advestra.​ch, +41 58 510 92 00. Ref­er­ences in this leg­al notice (the Notice) to ​“Advestra”, ​“we” or ​“us” are ref­er­ences to Advestra Ltd.

If you provide us with per­son­al data of oth­er per­sons (e.g. fam­ily mem­bers or work col­leagues), we assume that you are author­ized to do so, that this data is cor­rect and that you have ensured that these per­sons are informed about this dis­clos­ure, inso­far as a leg­al duty to inform applies.

Per­son­al data we process

Per­son­al data we pro­cess about you includes:

• your name and con­tact details (for example name, address, phone num­ber and e‑mail address), inform­a­tion about the com­pany you work for, your pos­i­tion or title and/​or your rela­tion­ship to a per­son, and oth­er basic inform­a­tion, inform­a­tion about your busi­ness rela­tion­ship with us, for example if you are a former employ­ee or part­ner of ours;
• iden­ti­fic­a­tion and back­ground inform­a­tion provided by you or col­lec­ted as part of our on-board­ing process;
• fin­an­cial inform­a­tion, for example pay­ment-related information;
• inform­a­tion provided to us by or on behalf of our cli­ents or gen­er­ated by us in the course or provid­ing ser­vices to clients;
• inform­a­tion provided to us for the pur­poses of attend­ing meet­ings, sem­inars and events;
• inform­a­tion about your edu­ca­tion, pre­vi­ous employ­ment and cer­ti­fic­ates, as well as any oth­er inform­a­tion you sub­mit to us when apply­ing for a job;
• inform­a­tion in rela­tion to mater­i­als and com­mu­nic­a­tions we send to you elec­tron­ic­ally, for example your use of mar­ket­ing e‑mails;
• any oth­er inform­a­tion relat­ing to you which you may provide to us.

We col­lect and record this inform­a­tion when you inter­act with us, for example when you com­mu­nic­ate with our employ­ees, sign up to receive inform­a­tion by e‑mail, attend a meet­ing, a sem­in­ar or oth­er event, or as part of an applic­a­tion pro­cess. We also col­lect or gen­er­ate per­son­al data in the course of provid­ing leg­al ser­vices, and when we col­lect per­son­al data from oth­er sources for example to keep your inform­a­tion up to date using pub­licly avail­able sources. As part of an applic­a­tion pro­cess, we con­sult work-related social net­works, the inter­net, media and, with your con­sent, obtain references.

To the extent per­mit­ted, we also take cer­tain data from pub­licly access­ible sources (for example debt col­lec­tion registers, land registers, com­mer­cial registers, media, inter­net incl. social media) or receive such data from our cli­ents and their employ­ees, from author­it­ies, (arbit­ra­tion) courts and oth­er third parties (such as coun­ter­parties, busi­ness and con­trac­tu­al part­ners of our cli­ents, your employ­er or client).

How we pro­cess your per­son­al data

We pro­cess your per­son­al data:

• to com­mu­nic­ate with you as well as with third parties, such as coun­ter­parties, courts or authorities;
• to carry out anti-money laun­der­ing, con­flict and repu­ta­tion­al checks;
• to provide and improve our ser­vices to you and our cli­ents, such as, in par­tic­u­lar, in the con­text of provid­ing leg­al ser­vices to our clients;
• in the con­text of pur­chas­ing products and ser­vices from our sup­pli­ers and aux­il­i­ar­ies (such as, in par­tic­u­lar, retained attor­neys and law firms or experts in Switzer­land and abroad), includ­ing per­son­al data of third parties dis­closed to us or col­lec­ted by us on behalf of our cli­ents, such as the pro­cessing of iden­ti­fic­a­tion and back­ground inform­a­tion as part of our onboard­ing pro­cess, fin­an­cial-related data, and data as part of our admin­is­trat­ive and mar­ket­ing processes/​work;
• to admin­is­ter our rela­tion­ship with you and with our clients;
• for the pur­pose of review­ing your job applic­a­tion, con­duct­ing the applic­a­tion pro­cess and, if your applic­a­tion is suc­cess­ful, pre­par­ing the start of your employ­ment and con­clud­ing the employ­ment contract;
• to provide and improve our web­sites, includ­ing mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­at­ing its use (see sec. 4 below for addi­tion­al information);
• to send you invit­a­tions to events, pub­lic­a­tions, changes in legis­la­tion, alerts, updates, news about us or sim­il­ar. This may take the form of, for example, news­let­ters and oth­er reg­u­lar con­tacts (elec­tron­ic, by post, by tele­phone). You may opt-out of such com­mu­nic­a­tions or refuse or with­draw con­sent to such com­mu­nic­a­tions at any time;
• for mar­ket and opin­ion research and media monitoring;
• To com­ply with our leg­al, reg­u­lat­ory and risk man­age­ment oblig­a­tions, includ­ing the asser­tion, enforce­ment and defense of leg­al claims;
• based on your consent.

We pro­cess per­son­al data for these pur­poses on the fol­low­ing basis: that it is neces­sary for us to per­form a con­tract, such as enga­ging with an indi­vidu­al to provide leg­al or oth­er ser­vices; for the estab­lish­ment, exer­cise or defense of leg­al claims or pro­ceed­ings; to com­ply with leg­al and reg­u­lat­ory oblig­a­tions; for legit­im­ate interests includ­ing the interests set out above; and/​or based on consent.

We use vari­ous tech­nic­al and organ­iz­a­tion­al meas­ures to help pro­tect your per­son­al data from unau­thor­ized access, use, dis­clos­ure, alter­a­tion or destruction.

Use of our web­site; communication

We auto­mat­ic­ally col­lect and store for a lim­ited time log data and device inform­a­tion when you access and use our web­site. That inform­a­tion includes, among oth­er things, details about how you use our web­site, IP address, access dates and times, hard­ware and soft­ware inform­a­tion, device inform­a­tion and sim­il­ar inform­a­tion. We pro­cess that data on the basis that it is required for us to oper­ate, main­tain and improve our websites.

Our web­sites use Google Ana­lyt­ics, a ser­vice provided by the Google group, that tracks and reports on the man­ner in which our web­sites are used. Google Ana­lyt­ics does this by pla­cing small text files called​“cook­ies” on your com­puter or oth­er device. Cook­ies col­lect inform­a­tion about the num­ber of vis­it­ors to the web­sites, the pages vis­ited and the time spent on the web­sites. This inform­a­tion is aggreg­ated and not per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able. This integ­ra­tion of Google Ana­lyt­ics gen­er­ally anonym­izes IP addresses by short­en­ing with­in the EU/EEA.

You may refuse the use of cook­ies by select­ing the appro­pri­ate set­tings on your browser. Note how­ever that this may affect your exper­i­ence of our web­sites. To find out more about cook­ies, includ­ing how to man­age, reject and delete cook­ies, vis­it www​.all​about​cook​ies​.org.

We may use your name and e‑mail address(es) to send you pub­lic­a­tions, alerts, updates, event invit­a­tions and oth­er inform­a­tion by e‑mail, but will ask for con­sent first unless we have obtained your con­tact details from you in the con­text of our ser­vices and you have not opted out from receiv­ing such mar­ket­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions. If you receive mar­ket­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions from us and no longer wish to do so, you may unsub­scribe at any time by fol­low­ing the link included in these e‑mails. Note that we use per­son­al data to under­stand if you read our e‑mails or click on links included in them.

To the extent per­mit­ted by law, we exclude liab­il­ity for the secur­ity of data that you trans­mit to us via the Inter­net (e.g. by e‑mail) or oth­er elec­tron­ic chan­nels and for any dir­ect or indir­ect dam­age. We ask you to choose oth­er com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels if this appears neces­sary or reas­on­able for secur­ity reasons.

Who we share your per­son­al data with

We may dis­close your per­son­al data to trus­ted third parties in con­nec­tion with the afore­men­tioned pro­cessing pur­poses, includ­ing the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies of recipients:

• Sup­pli­ers to whom we have out­sourced cer­tain sup­port ser­vices such as trans­la­tion work or doc­u­ment reviews;
• IT ser­vice providers;
• third parties engaged in the course of the ser­vices we provide to cli­ents, with their pri­or con­sent, for example oth­er law firms and tech­no­logy ser­vice pro­viders such as data room services;
• Any coun­ter­parties, inter­ested parties in the con­text of trans­ac­tions under com­pany law, and oth­er per­sons involved (e.g. col­lat­er­al pro­viders, fin­an­ci­ers or affil­i­ated companies);
• Industry organ­iz­a­tions, asso­ci­ations, organ­iz­a­tions and oth­er bod­ies and their members;
• our aud­it­ors;
• third parties involved in host­ing or organ­iz­ing events or seminars;
• media and the pub­lic, includ­ing web­site and social media visitors;
• oth­er per­sons, where the inclu­sion of third parties res­ults from the afore­men­tioned pro­cessing pur­poses. This con­cerns, for example, deliv­ery address­ees or pay­ment recip­i­ents spe­cified by you, third parties in the con­text of agency rela­tion­ships (e.g. your law­yer or your bank) or per­sons involved in offi­cial or leg­al proceedings.

For the pur­poses set out in this policy and to the extent deemed neces­sary, we may dis­close per­son­al data to courts, law enforce­ment agen­cies, reg­u­lat­ory and gov­ern­ment­al author­it­ies, and law enforce­ment and enforce­ment agen­cies. We may also dis­close your per­son­al data to our super­vis­ory author­ity, in par­tic­u­lar to the extent neces­sary in an indi­vidu­al case to obtain a release from our pro­fes­sion­al duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity. Fur­ther, we may be required to share your per­son­al data to com­ply with leg­al require­ments and reg­u­lat­ory obligations.

All of these cat­egor­ies of recip­i­ents may in turn involve third parties, so that your data may also become access­ible to them. We can restrict pro­cessing by cer­tain third parties (e.g. IT pro­viders), but not by oth­er third parties (e.g. author­it­ies, banks, etc.).

Coun­tries we trans­fer your per­son­al data to

We may trans­fer your per­son­al data to recip­i­ents abroad, includ­ing coun­tries that do not ensure a level of data pro­tec­tion equi­val­ent to Swiss law. Nor­mally, we will make such a trans­fer if it is neces­sary for the per­form­ance of a con­tract with or in the interest of a data sub­ject, or for its con­clu­sion, or for the asser­tion, enforce­ment or defense of leg­al claims.

If, excep­tion­ally, we trans­fer data to a coun­try without adequate leg­al data pro­tec­tion, we will ensure, as provided by law, by using appro­pri­ate con­tracts (namely on the basis of the so-called stand­ard con­trac­tu­al clauses of the European Com­mis­sion, which can be accessed here: https://​eur​-lex​.europa​.eu/​e​l​i​/​d​e​c​_​i​m​p​l​/​2​0​2​1​/​9​14/oj?, includ­ing the sup­ple­ments neces­sary for Switzer­land) or so-called Bind­ing Cor­por­ate Rules for an adequate level of pro­tec­tion or rely on the leg­al excep­tions of con­sent, the exe­cu­tion of con­tracts, the estab­lish­ment, exer­cise or enforce­ment of leg­al claims, over­rid­ing pub­lic interests, pub­lished per­son­al data or because it is neces­sary to pro­tect the integ­rity of the data subjects.

How we retain your per­son­al data

We retain your per­son­al data for as long as it is neces­sary for the pur­poses for which the data is col­lec­ted, and as long as we have a legit­im­ate interest in keep­ing per­son­al data, for example to enforce or defend claims or for archiv­ing pur­poses and IT secur­ity. We also retain your per­son­al data as long as it is sub­ject to a leg­al reten­tion obligation.

Your rights

You are entitled to request detailed inform­a­tion about wheth­er we hold per­son­al data about you and, if so, what per­son­al data we hold about you, for what pur­pose and how we pro­cess it, how long we hold it and, if avail­able, inform­a­tion about its ori­gin. You are also entitled to request a copy of your per­son­al data. You can also have your data cor­rec­ted or deleted, restrict our pro­cessing activ­it­ies con­cern­ing this inform­a­tion and object to the pro­cessing of your per­son­al data. You may also decide to with­draw your consent.

Please note that these rights may be sub­ject to con­di­tions, excep­tions or lim­it­a­tions (for example to pro­tect third parties, busi­ness secrets, due to our pro­fes­sion­al duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity, to com­ply with leg­al oblig­a­tions or because we are leg­ally required to retain the data). We reserve the right to redact cop­ies or to provide only excerpts for reas­ons of data pro­tec­tion or con­fid­en­ti­al­ity. The exer­cise of your rights may con­flict with con­trac­tu­al agree­ments and this may have con­sequences such as the pre­ma­ture ter­min­a­tion of the con­tract or fin­an­cial con­sequences. We will inform you in advance if this is not already con­trac­tu­ally reg­u­lated. Please also note that even if you have decided to with­draw your con­sent or request dele­tion of your data, we may con­tin­ue to pro­cess your per­son­al data to the extent required or per­mit­ted by law.

You may also file a com­plaint with a loc­al super­vis­ory author­ity, in Switzer­land with the Fed­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion and Inform­a­tion Commissioner.