Application and interpretation
These general terms and conditions, together with the Swedish Bar Association’s guiding principles for good legal ethics, apply to all services provided by Lawyer Paula Eninge AB (“Eninge”).
References in these general terms to “we”, “us” or “our” are in reference to Eninge. The use of “services” is made with reference to advice and other services including documents and other documents prepared and developed by us. An “assignment” includes all parts and aspects of cases, even if they include multiple instructions (whether given on one or more occasions), involve multiple legal areas, cause separate invoices, include several legal or physical persons and in what conceivable constellation we represent the latter.
Any “special terms” can be found in assignment confirmation or another applicable document.
Fees
Our goal is to always be able to provide legal services at competitive fees. Upon request, we will provide you with an estimate of the scope and range of cost, and depending on the nature of the assignment, enter into an agreement with you regarding an agreed budget or similar fee arrangement for the assignment. The amount of the fee is stated excluding VAT and similar taxes and will be charged in accordance with the law in the relevant jurisdiction.
Our fees are always consistent with the rules issued by each applicable judicial body. The following factors affect the fee’s total cost:
- The total amount of work.
- The competence, skill and experience the assignment requires.
- The total amount of economic value the assignment is said to encompass.
- Possible risks the assignment may entail Eninge.
- Any substantial time pressure imposed by the nature of the assignment.
- The final result.
We reserve for additional costs that may arise because of the assignments, such as travel and other expenses. Normally, we commit ourselves to the costs temporarily and charge you only at the completion of the assignment, but there may be situations where we will request payment in advance of expenses and forward the current invoice to you if special reasons are assumed to exist.
If you wish, you can choose to accept any expenses if they exceed 500 euros. Such a request must be put forward at the initial start of the assignment, alternatively before the disclosure comes to your attention.
Billing
Unless specifically agreed between you and the law firm, billing occurs monthly by sending you an invoice by email or regular mail. At the request of billing through a third party billing system, we must enjoy access to the terms of the system in order to make an assessment if we can accept the billing solution in question.
We offer you an alternative to request preliminary billing for our fee instead of billing of performed work during the current time period. In that case, the final invoice for the assignment shall indicate the total amount of our fee from which the fee paid “a conto” is deducted.
Unless otherwise agreed, the due date for payment of invoices is set to 15 days starting from the date the invoice was issued.
Our invoices for executed work will be addressed to you, as a client. You will find the expiry date on each invoice. In the case of non-payment, interest on late payment will be charged on the due date from the due date until payment is received in accordance with applicable law.
Reporting of VAT registration number
As a result of following applicable law, we are obliged in certain cases to provide information to the tax authorities about your VAT registration number and the value of the services we have provided to you. When you choose to hire the law firm, you are deemed to have consented to providing such information in accordance with applicable law.
Identification of clients
Before commencing an assignment, we must, in accordance with the law, determine the identity and ownership of our clients and provide ourselves with information about the nature and purpose of the case. The procedure may be that we ask you for, among other things, identity documents relating to you and other persons who are on your behalf involved in the assignment, for a legal person, for additional physical persons who hold the ultimate control over it, as well as information and documentation that demonstrate where funds and other assets originate from. Our obligation also applies to the control and verification of the information that is available to us and the procedure may involve obtaining information from external sources. We are obliged to keep all the information and documentation we have obtained for the above purpose.
We are obliged to report suspicions of money laundering or terrorist financing to the Finance Department. In addition, we are prevented by law from informing you that there are suspicions, whether the notification has been made or will be made to the Finance Department. In each case, suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing is present, we undertake ourselves to refuse or withdraw from the assignment.
We cannot be held liable for damage that you are caused directly or indirectly as a result of our compliance with the obligations we have perceived as being committed to by law.
New clients may be asked for references.
Personal information
The law firm is the data controller for personal information that is provided and collected in connection with assignments. The responsibility also applies to the personal information that might have been registered in connection with the preparation or administration of an assignment. Additional information about personal data may be obtained from private and public records. All handling and processing of personal data is in accordance with applicable personal data law.
For more information regarding the handling of your personal information, please see the relevant section on our website “www.advokateninge.se”.
Consulting
All our consulting is tailored to each client’s individual cases. The advice is based on the nature of the assignment, the facts presented to us and the instructions you give us. This means that you cannot rely on and apply the advice to another assignment or use the advice for any purpose other than the one for which it was provided. Our consulting does not apply to taxes or potential tax consequences unless otherwise agreed. Our consulting includes legal issues for your specific assignments. We shall not be considered as responsible for any consequences following mathematical calculations or expressed perceptions and considerations in matters not related to the law. Neither for the consequences that may arise because of non-judicial assessments.
We reserve the right to only advise on the legal situation in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Upon request, we would like to assist you in obtaining the necessary advice from lawyers in other relevant jurisdictions.
All the consulting we give in connection with the assignments is based on the legal situation at the time they are provided. Unless otherwise agreed, we do not undertake to update the advice we have given in view of subsequent changes in the legal situation.
Our consulting can never guarantee a certain outcome.
Disclaimer
Our liability for damages incurred as a result of errors, negligence or breach of contract upon our part in the execution of the engagement is limited to the fee for the assignment in question times five and what was actually covered by our liability insurance. We do not accept any obligations regarding payment penalties issued on Eninge.
Limitation in accordance with the amount stated above also applies to multiple damages in each case caused by one and the same act, of the same kind of act, omission or negligence. The cited applies regardless of when the damage was caused or occurred.
Our responsibility is limited by the damage you have finally suffered. This means that the liability shall be reduced by all amounts, following actions that may be made under any insurance which you have subscribed to or which have been signed for you, or under an agreement or indemnity relationship where you are a party or beneficiary, unless it is incompatible with your agreement with an insurer, or other third party, or if your rights vis-à-vis an insurer or third party are restricted by reasons of this. Except as stated above, we do not assume any liability to a contemplated third party because of the use of any document or other advice originating from Eninge.
The stipulated dates or suggested time frames for any part of the work are not liable for binding from our part unless otherwise agreed. Circumstances beyond our control which cause delay in commencement of assignments or the opportunity to continue our work shall also not be deemed to fall under the responsibility.
In the specific cases where we undertake to give advice regarding tax or potential tax consequences, our liability for error and neglect does not include the potential taxes you are charged with paying. Exception applies in each case at the time of the consultation, in where there was an alternative structure or method for achieving your commercial goals without additional costs or risks that would completely avoid payment of the mentioned taxes.
If we, on request, agree with you that third parties can rely on documents or advice produced by us, it does not extend our area of responsibility. A third party can never get better right than you originally received. Any compensation paid to third parties as a result of our liability in turn reduces our liability towards you vice versa. By special agreement that a third party is allowed to rely on a document or advice we have left, no form of client relationship is created between us and this third party. The foregoing also applies when we issue a statement, certificate or the like to third parties upon your request.
Regardless of what has been said above, the law firm reimburse all the damage caused by intent.
The stated liability limits in these general terms, alternatively established under separate agreements, comprises all employees of the law firm, former employees involved in the relevant assignments, employed persons or employed by the law firm.
Collaboration with advisors
Through our professional career, the law firm and its employees have acquired a solid network of other advisors in Sweden and abroad. We are happy to assist you in the contact and instructions with other advisors regarding specific issues. These advisors shall be considered independent of us and we disclaim all responsibility for the recommendation to those persons. It also includes the consulting or advice they provide, whether made directly to you or through us. We are independent of the potential payment charge due to the fees or costs they may charge to you.
Mission to instructing advisors means the power to accept a liability limitation on your behalf. When we undertake to instruct other advisors, we may, in agreement with you, obtain quotes on their fees and / or agree on the fees with them. Although we are able to assist you in discussions with other advisors, we do not accept any liability for such quotes and / or agreements.
In the event that an external adviser’s liability towards you is considered to be more limited than our liability, any liability that we owe to you as a consequence of our possible joint and several liability with the other adviser will be reduced by the compensation we could have recouped from that adviser on his liability against you, had it not been restricted in that way (and regardless of whether the other advisor could have been able to pay the compensation to us).
Insider list
In each case, you are considered to constitute an issuer subject to the obligation to establish a so-called ” insider list pursuant to Article 18 of the EU Market Use Ordinance (596/2014/EU), and through our assignment attached to you, we receive insider information regarding you or financial instruments of yours, we will, if notified in accordance with the following, establish an insider list of employees of the law firm who have access to the insider information. By contacting and recruiting the law firm, you shall be deemed to have consented to, in relevant cases, immediately inform us as soon as you believe that specific information we have available, constitutes insider information regarding your issued financial instruments or related financial derivative instruments.
Without a special agreement with you, we will not otherwise than mentioned in the previous section keep a list of those employed who have access to an assignment related to you. The list will exclusively concern only persons who are employed by the law firm with access to insider information.
Communication
Communication with our clients and other parties involved in an assignment is done in several ways, such as: via internet and e-mail. Each method involves its own risks, which we do not take responsibility for. If you wish to manage communication otherwise, we will certainly meet your needs.
We can never guarantee that your messages communicated via a digital way will reach us, so we recommend that you always follow up on priority messages by phone, or request confirmation that they have arrived.
Intellectual property rights and confidentiality
The work generated by our client’s assignments is covered by copyright and other intellectual property rights. They belong to us, but you have full right of use to use the featured material for the purposes for which it is provided. Without special agreement, you are not entitled to provide public disclosure or use for marketing purposes for any document or other job results.
In accordance with applicable law and data protection rules or equivalent in the relevant jurisdiction where we operate and with our own appropriate procedures, we will protect the information you provide to us.
In the event that you allow us to employ or collaborate with other advisors within the assignment, we reserve the right to disclose material and other information that we consider relevant and necessary for the advisor to provide advice and to provide services for you in the best possible manner. It also includes material and other information that we provided as a result of actions listed above.
Conflict of interests
By working with many different clients, a conflict of interest may arise in relation to another client than you. Prior to each assignment, we undertake to verify whether there is a conflict of interest in accordance with applicable rules of good legal ethics (or equivalent in relevant jurisdiction). All conflicts of interest are impossible to predict. In a situation where verification has been carried out and then a circumstance arises which prevents us from representing you in an ongoing or future assignment, we always strive to treat each client fairly, taking into account good legal ethics. With that in mind, it is of utmost importance that you provide us with all information you suspect may constitute an actual or potential conflict of interests before and during the assignment.
Management of documents
During the time an assignment is considered so-called alive and active, we store documents and work results which we, you or third parties have put forward. The storage takes place electronically in an agency-wide system in order to facilitate and streamline the work on your assignment.
Upon completion of the assignment, we choose to preserve and / or store in a cloud-based service all the documents we consider as relevant, generated through an assignment. The nature of the assignment affects the time the storage is carried out. The storage time is never less than the rules stipulated by the current applicable law.
Unless otherwise specifically agreed, original documents will be submitted to you when assignments are deemed completed. Should documents of value be sent upon your request, it will be handled at your own risk. We reserve the right to keep copies of these documents for our own records.
The procedure for complaints and claims against us
Our goal of pursuit is always that you shall be pleased with our services. In case you are dissatisfied or have complaints, it falls on you to notify us as soon as possible. If you set demands, we will investigate your complaint and try to answer the questions you may possibly have in the best possible way.
As regards claims relating to advice provided by a staff member within the law firm, the complaint shall be lodged with us as soon as you have been informed of the circumstances on which the claim is based. The requirements cannot be made later than 12 months after the latter:
- From the date on which the last invoice linked to your assignment and requirements was issued.
- From the date that the circumstances in question became known to you, alternatively, could have become known to you.
A claim can under no circumstances be made later than 10 years after the agreement regarding the consulting was initiated or signed.
Should the claim be based on third party, tax authority or other authority’s claims against you, we reserve the right to respond, regulate and relate the claim on your behalf, subject to the condition that we retain you free from harm through the procedure. If you choose to regulate, meet a settlement or take any other action regarding such claim without first obtaining our consent, we cannot be held liable for the claim.
If we or our insurers pay compensation to you as a result of a stipulated claim, you will, as a condition of payment, transfer to us or our insurers the right to third party regression by transfer or subrogation.
Changes
We reserve the right to change these terms in the future. The latest version is always available on our website “www.advokateninge.se”. A copy of the latest version will be sent to you on request.
Different language versions
The general terms and conditions have been provided in both Swedish and English. For all clients who are registered or resident in Sweden, the Swedish version shall apply. For all other clients, the English version applies. The English spoken terms used in the terms must be interpreted on the basis of Swedish legal tradition and legislation.
Applicable law and jurisdiction
These terms and conditions and all questions concerning them and all questions relating to our assignments are governed by and interpreted in accordance with Swedish material law.
Disputes, disagreements or claims arising out of or relating to these terms or conditions or breach of the terms, termination or invalidity of the terms, any special terms of employment or any matter relating to our assignments for you shall be finally ruled by arbitration pursuant to Arbitration Rules for Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Arbitration Institute. The arbitration proceedings shall be held in Karlskrona, Sweden.
For clients who, under appropriate legislation, can be regarded as consumers, it is possible, under certain conditions, to turn to the Legal Affairs Consumer Protection Board. They are investigating inheritance disputes and other financial requirements that may be posed against us. For further information, see “www.advokatsamfundet.se/konsumenttvistnamnden”.
Regardless of what is stated in the above section, we reserve the right to bring action for expired fees or claims in courts that have jurisdiction over you or any of your assets.