General terms and conditions

General terms and conditions Sarfaty Advocaten

 Introduction

1. Sarfaty Advocaten B.V. (“Sarfaty Advocaten”) is a private limited company that aims to provide legal services, including services provided by lawyers, in the broadest sense of the word.

Assignment

1. All assignments to provide legal assistance are exclusively accepted and executed by Sarfaty Advocaten. This also applies if it is the express oar tacit intention that an assignment will be executed by a specific person. The operation of article 7:404 BW, which provides a regulation for the latter case, and the operation of article 7:407 paragraph 2 BW, which establishes joint and several liability for cases in which an assignment has been given to two or more persons, are excluded.
2. Assignments given are executed by Sarfaty Advocaten exclusively for the benefit of the client. Third parties cannot derive any rights from the content of the work performed, and more generally from the manner in which the assignments given have or have not been carried out.
3. The assignments accepted by Sarfaty Advocaten lead to an obligation of effort and never to an obligation of result.
4. When providing services, the lawyer of Sarfaty Advocaten may at all times assume that the domicile and/or postal address provided by the client is correct. The client must provide the lawyer with information regarding his address details.

Liability

1. Any liability of Sarfaty Advocaten is limited to the amount paid out in the relevant case under the professional liability insurance taken out by it, plus the amount of the deductible that is not borne by the insurers according to the policy conditions.
2. If, through or in connection with the execution of an assignment or otherwise, damage is caused to persons or property for which damage Sarfaty Advocaten is liable, that liability is limited to the amount for which the general liability insurance (AVB) taken out by it provides entitlement, increased by the amount of the deductible that is not borne by the insurers according to the policy conditions.
3. If, for whatever reason, no payment is made under the aforementioned insurances, any liability is limited to the fee charged by Sarfaty Advocaten in connection with the relevant assignment.
4. The limitation of liability described in this article also applies in the event that an assignment may have been wrongly refused and damage may result from this.
5. All rights of action and other powers against Sarfaty Advocaten, on whatever grounds, shall lapse if they are not submitted to Sarfaty Advocaten in writing and with reasons within one year after the moment at which the person concerned was aware, or could reasonably have been aware, of the facts on which he bases his rights and powers.
6. When engaging third parties to carry out the assignments given to it, Sarfaty Advocaten will exercise due care. Said engagement will always be at the client’s expense. Sarfaty Advocaten is authorised to accept any liability limitations of the third parties engaged by it on behalf of the client without prior consultation with the client. Sarfaty Advocaten is not liable for any shortcomings of these third parties. An exclusion of liability also applies to damage caused by the improper functioning of equipment, software, data files, registers or other items used by Sarfaty Advocaten in the execution of the assignment, without exception, as well as to damage caused by computer viruses and by the interception of audio and/or data transmissions from telephone, fax or e-mail.
7. After the end of the assignment, all original documents and any copies from the file will be returned to the client. The other documents will be kept for a period of five years. The file can then be destroyed.

4          Invoicing and payment

1. The costs of executing the assignment by Sarfaty Advocaten include fees, disbursements, and other costs such as travel and accommodation expenses and any costs of third parties charged to Sarfaty Advocaten for the purpose of executing the assignment, plus sales tax.
2. An initial meeting (intake meeting) is only free of charge if this has been confirmed in writing by Sarfaty Advocaten in advance. In that case, only the first half hour of the initial meeting will be free of charge and the additional time that this takes will be charged. All work resulting from or related to the initial meeting will be charged in accordance with the applicable rates.
3. Unless expressly agreed otherwise or arising from the nature of the assignment, the fee is determined on the basis of the time spent and the hourly rate applicable to the assignment in question. This hourly rate is determined on the basis of a basic hourly rate to be determined periodically, multiplied by a factor that depends on the experience and specialism of the person who actually carries out the assignment and the degree of urgency involved in the assignment.
4. The disbursements consist of costs incurred by Sarfaty Advocaten on behalf of the client in the context of the execution of the assignment. Disbursements include court fees, bailiff costs, costs of extracts and travel expenses.
5. Sarfaty Advocaten is entitled to change the basic hourly rate it uses and the amount of the office costs and the travel expenses allowance.
6. The work is charged to the client periodically. Payment of Sarfaty Advocaten’s invoices must be made within 14 days after the invoice date or as much earlier as agreed. Following a request to that effect from Sarfaty Advocaten, which can be made both prior to and during the execution of the assignment, the client will pay an advance (which can be offset against the final invoice) or provide security for the fulfilment of his payment obligations.
7. Offsetting of invoices from Sarfaty Advocaten against counterclaims, regardless of whether or not these are disputed, is excluded, except in the case of express written agreement between Sarfaty Advocaten and the client.
8. If the payment term is exceeded, the client is in default by operation of law and owes default interest equal to the applicable statutory commercial interest.
9. In the event of (extra)judicial collection, the client owes, in addition to the principal sum and the default interest, the collection costs actually incurred by Sarfaty Advocaten. The extrajudicial collection costs amount to at least 10% of the principal sum with a minimum of € 250. The legal costs are not limited to the legal costs to be liquidated, but will be borne in full by the client if the client is (predominantly) proven wrong.
10. If the client fails to meet his financial obligations, Sarfaty Advocaten may refuse to commence its activities and may suspend or discontinue them.

5           Privacy and Third-Party Funds

1. Sarfaty Advocaten registers personal and business data of clients. Anyone who uses the services of Sarfaty Advocaten gives permission in advance to those who provide these services to bring the data that other parties of Sarfaty Advocaten other than the directly involved lawyers may find useful and/or necessary in the context of relationship management to the attention of those others.
2. No interest will be paid on client funds held in the account of the Stichting Derdengelden Sarfaty advocaten, unless explicitly agreed otherwise in writing.

6          Applicable law and complaints procedure

1. The legal relationship between Sarfaty Advocaten and its clients is governed by Dutch law. Disputes that fall within the jurisdiction of a Court will initially be settled exclusively by the (Presidential Relief Judge of the) Court of Amsterdam. If Sarfaty Advocaten acts as the claimant, it is entitled, in deviation from this, to bring the dispute before the competent foreign court. Sarfaty Advocaten also has an office complaints procedure. You can choose to submit your complaint to Sarfaty Advocaten. You can find this office complaints procedure on the Sarfaty Advocaten website.

7          Effect of the terms and conditions

1. The provisions in these general terms and conditions have also been made for the benefit of the directors and the (indirect) shareholders of Sarfaty Advocaten, the Sarfaty Advocaten Third Party Funds Foundation and for the benefit of all persons who, whether or not under an employment contract, are or were employed by them or by Sarfaty Advocaten.