Privacy Policy & Other Information Incl. Affiliation Location

This Privacy Policy outlines how Rooney Nimmo collects, uses and transfers any personal data that you provide to us, and which we may also collect as a result of your use of our website and digital platforms or through e-mail communications from you.

We take the privacy and integrity of our clients’ data very seriously. The purpose of this note is to set out in a clear, simple manner certain information about your rights in respect of your personal data.

Rooney Nimmo will often be data controller in relation to the processing activities that we undertake. Where you have engaged us to provide professional services to you, we may be acting as a data processor on your behalf, and if this is the case then the terms of the contract we have with you will provide further details.

Who we are

Rooney Nimmo is an international law firm based in New York, London, Edinburgh and San Francisco.

In the UK, Rooney Nimmo is a trading name of Rooney Nimmo Limited.  Rooney Nimmo Limited is a law firm regulated by the Law Society of Scotland and authorised to perform incidental financial business, and is registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority in England & Wales under number 628335. Rooney Nimmo Limited is a limited liability company registered in Scotland with registration number SC474342, registered office at 8 Walker Street, Edinburgh EH3 7LA, VAT number 975494954

In the US, Rooney Nimmo is a trading name of Rooney Nimmo P.C. Rooney Nimmo P.C. is a law firm registered in New York as a professional corporation with registered place of business at 800 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Rooney Nimmo may be contacted in the USA at 800 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, or on (+1) 212 545 8022.

Rooney Nimmo is referred to in this Privacy Policy as “Rooney Nimmo”, “we”, “us” or “our”.

Should you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or regarding how your personal data is processed by us, please contact us at privacy@rooneynimmo.co.uk.

◆ Hong Kong: Rooney Nimmo’s presence in Hong Kong is through affiliation with JC Legal, whose principal place of business is 13/F, The Strand, 49 Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. JC Legal is a sole proprietorship and is registered with the Law Society of Hong Kong (www.hklawsoc.org.hk/pub_e/default.asp) with business registration number 55480968-000. Neither Rooney Nimmo nor JC Legal has any control over, or acts as an agent of, or assumes any liability for the acts or omissions of, the other.

Right to complain

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance at privacy@rooneynimmo.co.uk.

The data we collect on you

“Personal data” or “personal information” is any information about an individual from which that person can be identified or which is about that person. We collect and store the following personal data:

• identity and contact data: this may include data such as your name, address, e-mail, telephone number, gender, marital status, and certain identification information such as copies of your passport, driver’s license, utility bill, tax demand, bank statement or other correspondence;
• background data: this may include information on your business and your personal history (such as prior employment or businesses);
• employee data: where relevant, identity, contact and background data on your employees, officers or others engaged by you;
• financial data: includes bank account or financial holdings information;
• transaction data: includes information on matters you have engaged us for;
• technical data: includes internet protocol (IP) address; your login data, browser type and version; time-zone setting and location; browser plug-in types and versions; operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website; and your interests, preferences, feedback and search terms;
• marketing and communications data: includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

We may collect Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Special Categories of Personal Data of clients and third parties will only be processed as is necessary to provide legal services for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

How is your data collected

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• direct interactions with you when you engage us to become our client, to access our digital platforms and/or to receive information from us;
• direct interactions with you where you are engaged to provide a service to us;
• where we are providing legal services: (i) if you are our client, you or persons engaged by you (such as your other professional advisers or your employees) may provide us with personal data about you and others, and we may collect information about you and others from other public and non-public sources, as is necessary for our provision of legal services (such as carrying out background checks to comply with any applicable anti-money-laundering/know-your-client procedures); (ii) if you are not a client, we may collect or be provided with personal data on you because you are involved with a matter on which our client has engaged us;
• information you provide to us in respect of an employment or consultancy application;
• your interactions with our website;
• third parties or publicly available sources, such as Call Credit or CallML for online identity, anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-client (KYC) checks.

If you do not provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. For example, to provide you with legal advice. In this case, we may have to cancel or suspend the contract you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

How your is data processed

We will process your personal data only where there is a lawful basis to do so, specifically:

• where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you, including:
  • where we have been engaged to provide legal or other services by you;
  • if you are not our client, then where we are acting on our client’s behalf; or
  • where you are going to provide services to us;

• where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests, including;
  • as part of a recruitment process;
  • to establish, exercise and/or defend our legal rights including in any legal proceedings;

• where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, including:
  • complying with any applicable regulatory requirements in terms of anti-money-laundering rules;
  • undertaking conflict of interest checks;
  • data protection rules; or
  • running anti-money-laundering or know-your-client checks with third-party providers; or

• where you have consented to the particular use of your data, including:
  • sending you marketing e-mails.

We will process Special Categories of Personal Data only where:

• you have expressly consented to us doing so;
• to establish, exercise and/or defend our legal rights including in any legal proceedings; or
• where we are required to do so in the context of employment law.

Change of purpose 

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Marketing communications

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing. We have established the following personal data control mechanisms:

• Promotional offers from us 

We may use your personal data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or engaged us to provide services, or if you provided us with your details and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

• Third-party marketing 

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside the Rooney Nimmo group of companies for marketing purposes.

• Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of services being provided to you, or if you are not our client, then where we are acting on our client’s behalf.

• Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

Transfers of your data to third parties

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below as a result of our contractual obligations with you or to comply with regulatory requirements which we are subject to.

• Internal Third Parties:
  • Other companies in the Rooney Nimmo Group who are based in the UK and the USA, pursuant to our contractual obligations to you;

• External Third Parties:
  • Other professional advisers, such as tax advisers, accountants or advocates/barristers;
  • Our banks;
  • Service providers acting as processors based in the UK and USA that provide IT and system administration services;
  • HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), regulators and other authorities whether based in the US or the UK, or as otherwise as required by law.

Where a disclosure of your personal data is required to be made to HMRC or other regulators, we will seek to notify you first unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International transfers

Where we are providing international legal advice or services, we may transfer your personal data within the Rooney Nimmo group. This may involve transferring your data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

We ensure your personal data is protected by requiring all our group companies to follow the same rules when processing your personal data. These rules are called “binding corporate rules”. For further details, see European Commission: Binding corporate rules.

Many of our external third parties providing IT and administration services are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA), so their processing of your personal data may involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Where possible, we look to ensure that personal data is held in the EEA. Where you are based outside the EEA or engage us to provide services outside the EEA then your personal data may be held outside the EEA and subject to the laws of a different jurisdiction (for example, a client based in the USA and engaging our New York office to provide legal services relating solely to a USA pertinent matter). If you have any questions as to where your data will be held, please contact us.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
• Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield, which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will we retain data for

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit

Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us. Exercising certain of your rights where we are providing services to you under contract may prevent us from providing services to you.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights).

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

We may update this Privacy Policy at any time and without notice.

Additional Information

The information contained in this web site is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship between you and Rooney Nimmo. Please contact the firm if you require advice specific to your situation. The content of this website is considered Attorney Advertising under the applicable rules of certain US states.