Privacy Policy

Ruoss, Vögele Partner, (the "Firm", "RUOSS VÖGELE", hereinafter also "we", "us") is a law firm with its registered office in Zurich. In the course of our business activities, we obtain and process personal data, in particular personal data about our clients, associated persons, counterparties, courts and authorities, correspondent law firms, professional and other asso-ciations, visitors to our website, participants in events, recipients of newsletters and other entities or, in each case, their contact persons and employees (hereinafter also "you"). In this privacy policy, we provide information about these data processing activities.

If you disclose information to us about other persons (e.g. family members, representatives, counterparties, or other associated persons), we will assume that you have the authority to do so, that such information is accurate, and that you have ensured that such persons are aware of such disclosure to the extent that a legal duty to inform applies (e.g. by bringing this Privacy Policy to their attention in advance).

When you use our services, use www.ruossvoegele.ch (hereinafter "website"), or otherwise deal with us, we obtain and process various categories of your personal data. In principle, we may collect and otherwise process this data in particular for the following purposes:

Communication: We process personal data so that we can communicate with you as well as with third parties, such as parties to proceedings, courts or authorities, by e-mail, telephone, letter or otherwise (e.g. to answer inquiries, in the context of legal advice and representation as well as the initiation or execution of contracts). This al-so includes that we may send our clients, contractual partners and other interested persons information about events, changes in the law, news about our law firm or similar. This may take the form of newsletters and other regular contacts (electronic, postal, telephone), for example. You may refuse such communications at any time or refuse or withdraw consent to such communications. For this purpose, we process in particular the content of the communication, your contact data and the marginal da-ta of the communication. If we need or want to establish your identity, we collect ad-ditional data (e.g. a copy of an ID).
Initiation and conclusion of contracts: With regard to the conclusion of a con-tract, such as in particular a contract for the establishment of an attorney-client rela-tionship, with you or your client or employer, which also includes the clarification of any conflicts of interest, we may in particular obtain and otherwise process your name, contact details, powers of attorney, declarations of consent, information about third parties (e.g. contact persons, family details as well as counterparties), contract contents, date of conclusion, creditworthiness data as well as all other data which you make available to us or which we collect from public sources or third parties (e.g. commercial register, credit agencies, sanctions lists, media, legal protection insuranc-es or from the Internet).
Administration and processing of contracts: We obtain and process personal da-ta so that we can comply with our contractual obligations to our clients and other contractual partners (e.g., suppliers, service providers, correspondence law firms, project partners) and, in particular, so that we can provide and request contractual services. This also includes data processing for client management (e.g. legal advice and representation of our clients before courts and authorities and correspondence) as well as data processing for the enforcement of contracts (debt collection, legal proceedings, etc.), accounting and public communication (if permitted). For this pur-pose, we process in particular the data which we receive or have collected in the course of the initiation, conclusion and execution of the contract, as well as data which we generate in the course of our contractual services or which we collect from public sources or other third parties (e.g. courts, authorities, counterparties, infor-mation services, media, detective agencies or from the Internet). Such data may in-clude, in particular, minutes of conversations and consultations, notes, internal and external correspondence, contractual documents, documents that we create and re-ceive in the course of proceedings before courts and authorities (e.g. statements of claim, appeals and complaints, judgments and decisions), background information about you, counterparties or other persons, as well as other mandate-related infor-mation, performance records, invoices, and financial and payment information.
Operation of our website: In order to operate our website in a secure and stable manner, we collect technical data, such as IP address, information about the operat-ing system and settings of your terminal device, region, time and type of use. In ad-dition, we use cookies and similar technologies. For further information cf. para. 8.
Improving our electronic offerings: In order to continuously improve our website and other electronic offerings, we collect data about your behavior and preferences by, for example, analyzing how you navigate through our website and how you in-teract with our social media profiles and other electronic offerings.
Registration: In order to use certain offers and services (e.g. free WLAN, newslet-ter), you must register (directly with us or via our external login service providers). For this purpose, we process the data disclosed during the respective registration. Furthermore, we may also collect personal data about you during the use of the offer or service; if necessary, we will provide you with further information about the pro-cessing of this data.
Security purposes as well as access controls: We obtain and process personal data to ensure and continuously improve the appropriate security of our IT and oth-er infrastructure (e.g. buildings). This includes, for example, monitoring and control-ling electronic access to our IT systems as well as physical access to our premises, analyzing and testing our IT infrastructures, system and error checks, and creating security copies.
Compliance with laws, directives and recommendations of authorities and internal regulations ("Compliance"): We obtain and process personal data to comply with applicable laws (e.g. anti-money laundering, tax obligations or our pro-fessional duties), self-regulations, certifications, industry standards, our corporate governance, as well as for internal and external investigations to which we are a par-ty (e.g. by a law enforcement or regulatory agency or an appointed private entity).
Risk management and corporate governance: We obtain and process personal data as part of risk management (e.g. to protect against tortious activities) and cor-porate governance. This includes, among other things, our operational organization (e.g., resource planning) and corporate development (e.g. acquisition and sale of operating units or companies).
Job application: If you apply for a job with us, we obtain and process the relevant data for the purpose of reviewing the application, carrying out the application pro-cess and, in the case of successful applications, for the preparation and conclusion of a corresponding contract. For this purpose, in addition to your contact data and the information from the corresponding communication, we also process in particular the data contained in your application documents and the data that we can additionally obtain about you, for example from job-related social networks, the Internet, the media and from references, if you consent to us obtaining references.
Other purposes: Other purposes include, for example, training and educational purposes and administrative purposes (e.g. accounting). We may listen to or record telephone or video conferences for training, evidence, and quality assurance purpos-es. In such cases, we will notify you separately (e.g. by displaying a notice during the video conference in question) and you are free to tell us if you do not want to be recorded or to stop the communication (if you just do not want your image recorded, please turn off your camera). In addition, we may process personal data for the or-ganization, implementation and follow-up of events, such as, in particular, lists of participants and the content of presentations and discussions, but also image and audio recordings made during these events. The protection of other legitimate inter-ests is also one of the further purposes, which cannot be named exhaustively.

In connection with the purposes set forth in sec. 3 we transfer your personal data in particular to the categories of recipients listed below. If necessary, we obtain your consent for this or have our supervisory authority release us from our professional duty of confidentiality.

Service providers: We work with service providers in Switzerland and abroad who (i) process data on our behalf (e.g. IT providers), (ii) process data jointly with us, or (iii) process data on their own responsibility that they have received from us or col-lected on our behalf. These service providers include, for example, IT providers, banks, insurance companies, debt collection companies, credit reporting agencies, address checkers, other law firms or consulting companies. We generally agree on contracts with these third parties regarding the use and protection of personal data.
Clients and other contractual partners: First of all, this refers to clients and other contractual partners of ours for whom a transfer of your data results from the con-tract (e.g. because you are working for a contractual partner or he is providing ser-vices for you). This category of recipients also includes entities with which we cooper-ate, such as other law firms in Switzerland and abroad or legal protection insurers. The recipients generally process the data under their own responsibility.
Authorities and courts: We may disclose personal data to offices, courts and other authorities in Switzerland and abroad if this is necessary for the fulfillment of our contractual obligations and, in particular, to conduct our mandate, or if we are legally obligated or entitled to do so, or if this appears necessary to protect our interests. These recipients process the data under their own responsibility.
Counterparties and persons involved: To the extent necessary for the perfor-mance of our contractual obligations, in particular for the management of the man-date, we also disclose your personal data to counterparties and other involved per-sons (e.g. guarantors, financiers, affiliated companies, other law firms, respondents or experts, etc.).
Other persons: This refers to other cases where the inclusion of third parties results from the purposes under para. 3. This concerns, for example, delivery addressees or payment recipients specified by you, third parties in the context of agency relation-ships (e.g. your lawyer or your bank) or persons involved in official or legal proceed-ings. We may also disclose your personal data to our supervisory authority, in partic-ular, if this is necessary in individual cases to release us from our professional duty of confidentiality. If we cooperate with the media and transmit material to them (e.g. photos), you may also be affected. In the course of business development, we may sell or acquire businesses, parts of businesses, assets or companies, or enter into partnerships, which may also result in the disclosure of data (including data about you, e.g. as a client or supplier or as their representative) to the persons involved in these transactions. Communications with our competitors, industry organizations, as-sociations and other bodies may also involve the exchange of data relating to you.

All 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 pro-viders), but not by other third parties (e.g. authorities, banks, etc.).

We also allow certain third parties to collect personal data from you on our website and at events organized by us, also on their own responsibility (e.g. media photographers, providers of tools that we have embedded on our website, etc.). Insofar as we are not decisively in-volved in these data collections, these third parties are solely responsible for them. If you have any concerns or wish to assert your data protection rights, please contact these third parties directly. We have described your rights in para. 7. Information about the activities on our website can be found in para. 8.

1. What is this privacy policy about?

2. Who is responsible for processing your data?

3. For what purposes do we process which of your data?

4. Where does the data come from?

5. Who do we disclose your information to?

6. Does your personal data also end up abroad?

7. What rights do you have?

8. How are cookies, similar technologies and social media plug-ins used?

9. Personal data on our sites and social networks

10. What else needs to be considered?

11. Can this privacy policy be changed?