Privacy Notice

We respect your privacy. We would like to ensure you have a transparent and clear insight into personal data we process about you, including the legal basis for processing and collecting your personal data. Please read this document carefully as it sets out our Privacy Policy which informs you why we collect your personal data and what we do with them.

For the purpose of this Privacy Notice and applicable data protection legislation (including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (the “GDPR“), the data controller and the company responsible for your personal data is Law firm BEKINA, ŠKURLA, DURMIŠ AND SPAJIĆ Ltd. with its registered seat in Croatia, Zagreb, Preradovićeva 24, PIN (OIB): 68178969783 (‘BŠDS’ or ‘we’).

We are authorised to amend this Privacy Notice at any time. Please visit this website in order to constantly be informed of any changes that will, without delay, be published here.

The following list contains information on the manner in which we collect your personal data. Please keep in mind that the subject list is not exhaustive.

Some of the personal data that we collect enable us to fulfil our obligations we have towards you or the third persons.

Depending on the type of personal data that are being processed, relationship and circumstances due to which we process such data, we will not be able to process your data should you refuse to provide us with such information.

We emphasize that all of your personal data, as well as all information you have entrusted us with as our client in addition to information we have found out in another manner during the attorney-client relationship, are being kept as the attorney-client privilege all in accordance with Article 13 of the Law on the Legal Profession and Articles 26 – 34 of the Attorney’s Code of Ethics.

Why we need your personal data?

We also process your personal data in accordance with provisions of the Law on the Legal Profession for the purpose of providing legal assistance, legal advisory, drafting documents and representing our clients before courts and administrative bodies. Your personal data are being processed upon an issued power of attorney i.e. an entered agreement on representation or upon a decision of the competent body on providing legal assistance.

Your personal data will be processed if you are, as a natural person, our client, within providing service of legal assistance and representation or if you are the primary contact person in a company to which our Law firm provides its legal services or legal representation as its client or if you are a director, member of the Management Board or the beneficial owner of the legal person to which our Law firm as its client provides legal services or legal representation. In such circumstances, upon an executed agreement with our client, we act on behalf and for the account of our client.

We will process your data even if you are not our client in case you, as a natural person, are the primary contact person in a legal person or a director, member of the Management Board or the beneficial owner of the legal person with which our Law firm has a certain business relationship, enters into a contract, participates in court proceedings or proceedings initiated before other competent bodies, if you have a claim or debt towards our client, all for the purpose of satisfying the mandate agreement entered into with our client and providing legal assistance.

In certain cases, we collect your personal data in order to act in accordance with our legal obligations – for instance in case of performing due diligence analysis in line with the Anti-money Laundering and Terrorism Financing regulations.

What data do we collect?

For the purpose of fulfilling obligations arising out of mandate agreements and in order we could be able to represent you adequately and provide you, as our client, with our legal assistance, we may collect and process identification and contact data as well as other data relevant for providing legal assistance, for the purpose of participating in proceedings and representing you before courts and administrative bodies and drafting documents and other legal acts. The type and categories of personal data we may collect and process about you significantly depend on the subject and nature of the case regarding which we provide our legal assistance to you. For instance:

  • Your name;
  • Personal identification number (OIB);
  • Your address;
  • Data from your identity card;
  • Your e-mail address;
  • Your telephone or mobile phone number:
  • Your bank account number;
  • Other information we may found out during the course of the attorney-client relationship connected to the attorney representation.

In providing our legal assistance we may process personal data about other persons such as counter-parties, witnesses, expert witnesses, court interpreters, employees of courts and other competent bodies, notaries and similar professions if that is necessary  for representation, providing legal services, defence proceedings and submitting legal applications.

In order to accurately and completely act in accordance with the Anti-Bribery and Corruption Screening Procedure, we must collect and process the following information:

  • Your name;
  • Your nationality;
  • Your date of birth;
  • Your passport number or other identity document;

In some instances, depending on the nature of the legal representation, provided it is necessary for initiating, arguing or completing legal claims, we will collect and process special category personal data such as information concerning racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, information on genetics, biometric information, information concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.

We may process your data for the purpose of issuing an invoice and may keep them as the accounting evidence.

In some instances your personal data may be processed if you are our prospective client in order to make sure there is no conflict of interest.

We do not process or share your personal data neither for the purpose of marketing nor do we use automatic data processing, including profiling.

How we collect your personal data?

We collect personal data directly from the data subjects upon documents presented to us by our clients for the purpose of providing legal assistance, from participants in court proceedings and competent bodies as well as from courts, competent bodies and third persons (for example from witnesses or expert witnesses) related to the matter for which the legal assistance is being provided.

We collect some personal data (for instance data on possessions) from public records while some personal information we may receive within the business correspondence with the third persons.

Who do we share your personal data with?

Attorneys, trainees and other persons employed with our Law firm may have the access to your personal data provided they are – taking into account their job description – authorised to have the access to personal data.

We will keep confidential information you have provided us with and will share them only if we will have a legitimate legal basis, for instance if that will be our legal obligation. Your data may be shared with the following groups of recipients:

  • Courts, tax and other competent bodies (for example Croatian Pension Insurance Institute, Financial Agency, Ministry of the Interior); 
  • Other attorneys and law firms due to providing services in accordance with provisions of the Law on the Legal Profession;
  • Other service providers who provide services on our behalf (including external consultants, investment consultants, professional advisers such as auditors or accountants, technical support providers and IT consultants carrying out certain testing or developing technical solutions for our business systems);
  • IT service providers with which we entered into appropriate data processing agreements;
  • Notaries, expert witnesses or court interpreters provided it is necessary given the objects of providing legal service.

How long we retain your personal data?

In accordance with provisions of the Law on the Legal Profession, we are obliged to keep your personal data for 10 years from the final termination of proceedings. However if enforcement proceedings upon final court judgements, or proceedings upon extraordinary remedies, proceedings before Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia or European Court of Human Rights are initiated, your personal data will be retained for 10 years from the day all legal remedies, aimed at protection of your rights and legal interests, have been exhausted. Please note that documents that we are safekeeping on your behalf will be retained until your opposite instruction.

Personal data from commercial business relationships are being kept for the maximum of 5 years from termination of the business relationship, as well as personal data processed upon a legal claim submitted by a data subject.

It is possible that certain situations will demand from us to retain personal data longer than it is indicated herein, namely when a separate regulation defines a longer time period of retaining certain type of documentation.

Accounting and financial documentation shall be retained for 11 years from the year it was made.

Personal data security

We care about protecting your information. In order to protect your personal data we have implemented appropriate measures that are designed to prevent unauthorized access to, and misuse of personal data. We are committed to taking all reasonable steps to ensure all stored personal data are protected from misuse, loss or from unauthorized access. We do this by having in place a range of appropriate technical and organizational measures. If you suspect of any misuse, loss or unauthorized access to your personal data please let us know immediately.

We want to make sure your personal data are stored and transferred in a secured way. We will therefore only transfer data outside the European Economic Area (the “EEA”) where it is compliant with data protection legislation and the means of transfer provide adequate safeguards in relation to your data.

When we transfer your personal data outside the EEA and where the country or territory in question does not maintain adequate data protection standards, we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your data are treated securely and in accordance with the privacy policy set out in this Privacy Notice.

Legal grounds for processing your data

  • Compliance with a legal obligation

Some personal data, such as information on the number and place of issuance of an identity card, information on a beneficial owner of a legal person, information on the date of birth, identification number, nationality or place of residence are being collected in order to verify your identity since it is our legal obligation deriving out of the Anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations.

Upon our legal obligation we collect and process information connected to issuance and settlement of invoices for complying with accounting and tax regulations.

  • Performance of contracts to which the data subject is a party

In most situations we process your personal data in line with provisions of the Law on the Legal Profession in order to provide the legal service and representation. In situations in which you are not our client and we still process your personal data, we process them on behalf of our client for the purpose of performance (fulfilment) of a contract and for the purpose of initiating and arguing legal claims by our client.

  • Legitimate interests

In some situations, regardless of the fact neither we are with you in any business relationship nor we have entered into an attorney representation agreement with you, we will process your personal data in order to provide our client with our legal service and representation given it is in our legitimate business interest as a Law firm, since processing your personal data does not significantly affect your rights and obligations and does not represent a significant threat to your privacy. For instance, if we obtain information about you from our client or the third persons within a court or administrative proceeding or for the purpose of negotiating a transaction, contract execution or drafting some other type of a legal document.

Special category data

Depending on the nature of a matter regarding which we provide our legal service, it may be possible that we shall process certain types of “sensitive” personal data.

In such case, the legal basis for processing that type of information shall be initiating and arguing legal claims, an explicit consent or a public proclamation by a data subject, depending on the circumstances of each case.

Your rights

You have various rights in relation to data we have about you, namely:

Right to object

You have a right to object to certain processing activities for the following reasons:

  • because it is in our legitimate interest;
  • in order to enable us to perform a task that is in the public interest;
  • scientific, historical, research and statistics purposes;

Withdrawal of the consent

In cases where you gave your consent to data processing for certain activities, you may at any time withdraw your consent while we will stop using your data for that purpose unless we determine that there is another legal ground that can be applied for continuance of data processing. We will inform you on such case.

Access to data 

You may at any time ask us to make you a copy of data we keep about you and change, update or delete that data. If we give you the access to your personal data that we process we will not charge you for the service, unless it is not permissive by the law. In the event you demand additional copies of that information from us, we may charge you with a reasonable administrative fee. In the event that is permissive by the law, we may decline your request. Should we decline your request, we will inform you on the reasons.

Right to be forgotten

You are entitled to ask us to “erase” your personal data in certain circumstances. This right is usually realised in the following cases:

  • information are no longer needed;
  • you withdrew your consent to using personal data and there is no other reason for processing them;
  • information are obtained illegally;
  • it is necessary to erase the data for the purpose of being compliant with legal obligations; or
  • you object to data processing and we are not able to prove a valid legal interest for continuance of data processing.

We would be entitled to decline your request in a limited number of cases and shall always inform you on the reasons for declining the request.

In situations in which we act upon a legal request for erasing the data we will take all reasonable steps in order to erase the subject data.

Right to restriction of processing

You are entitled to ask we restrict processing of your personal data in certain events, for instance if you contest the accuracy of personal data we hold about you or if you contest processing of your personal data we perform upon a legitimate interest. In case we have shared your personal data with the third persons, we will inform you on restriction of processing unless it is not possible or it would imply taking unreasonable effort. Naturally, we will inform you prior cessation of restriction of processing.

Right to rectification

You are entitled to demand rectification of any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we keep about you. In case we have shared such data with the third persons, we will inform them on the rectification unless it is not possible or would otherwise require unreasonable effort. You may ask us the details on the third person with whom we have shared inaccurate or incomplete data. Where we consider unreasonable to act upon your request, we will provide explanation for passing such our decision.

Data portability 

You are entitled to demand the transfer of your data to another service provider. Effectively this means that you can request us to transfer the data we hold about you directly to a third person. In order to enable the latter, we will provide you with the data we keep about you in a machine-readable format enabling you to transfer the data. Alternatively, we can transfer the data about you directly to the other service provider.

The right to data protection

You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority i.e. the Croatian Data Protection Authority. You can contact the Croatian Data Protection Authority either:

  • personally;
  • in writing to the address: Agencija za zaštitu osobnih podataka, Selska cesta 136, 10 000 Zagreb;
  • by fax: 01/46-090-99
  • by e-mail: azop@azop.hr

Should you decide to use any of the hereabove stated rights or withdraw the consent you have given to the data processing (in the events in which the consent is a legal basis for usage of your personal data), we kindly ask you to contact us in writing to the address of the registered seat of the company Law firm BEKINA, ŠKURLA, DURMIŠ AND SPAJIĆ Ltd., Preradovićeva 24, 10 000 Zagreb or via e-mail: info@bsds.hr. Please note that we may keep a record of our communication to help us resolve any issues which you may raise.