Privacy Policy of EMPLEA Ltd

The protection of your data and your privacy is very important to us. This privacy policy informs you about how we process your personal data.

Responsible for processing

Your personal data will be processed by the following responsible party:

EMPLEA Ltd
Aeschengraben 20
Postfach
CH – 4010 Basel

+41 61 270 20 00
info@emplea.ch

 

References in this privacy policy to “we” or “us” are references to EMPLEA Ldt.

Purpose of processing and categories of personal data processed

When you use our services, visit our website “www.emplea.ch” (hereinafter referred to as “website”), or otherwise deal with us, we collect and process various categories of your personal data. In principle, we may collect and process this data for the following purposes in particular:

  • Communication and contact: We process personal data so that we can communicate with you and third parties, such as parties to proceedings, courts, or authorities, by email, telephone, letter, or other means (e.g., to respond to inquiries, provide legal advice, and represent you). This also includes sending our clients and other interested parties information about events, changes in the law, news about our law firm, or similar matters. This may take the form of newsletters and other regular communications (electronically, by mail, or by telephone). You can object to such communication at any time or refuse or withdraw your consent to such communication. For this purpose, we process in particular the content of the communication, your contact details, and the metadata of the communication.
  • Initiation and conclusion of contracts: With a view to concluding a contract with you or your client or employer, in particular a contract establishing a client relationship, which also includes clarifying any conflicts of interest, we may in particular collect and otherwise process your name, contact details, powers of attorney, declarations of consent, information about third parties (e.g., contact persons, family details, and counterparties), contract content, date of conclusion, creditworthiness data, and any other data that you provide to us or that we collect from public sources or third parties (e.g., commercial registers, legal protection insurance companies, or the Internet).
  • Administration, processing, and performance of contracts: We collect and process personal data to fulfill our contractual obligations toward our clients and other contractual partners (e.g., suppliers, service providers, correspondent law firms, project partners) and, in particular, to provide and demand contractual services. This also includes data processing for the management of client relationships (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 (to the extent permitted). For this purpose, we process in particular the data that we have received or collected in the course of initiating, concluding, and executing the contract, as well as data that we create in the course of our contractual services or that we collect from public sources or other third parties (e.g., courts, authorities, counterparties, information services, media, or the Internet). This data may include, in particular, minutes of meetings and consultations, notes, internal and external correspondence, contract documents, documents that we create and receive in the course of proceedings before courts and authorities (e.g., legal documents, judgments, and decisions), background information about you, counterparties, or other persons, as well as other mandate-related information, performance records, invoices, and financial and payment information.
  • Operation and optimization of our website: For the operation and optimization of our website, we process technical data such as your IP address, region, date and time of access, host name of the accessing computer, website from which the website was accessed, websites accessed via the website, pages visited on our website, URL clicked, amount of data transferred, information about the browser type and version used, operating system, device, access provider. We also use cookies and similar technologies (see below);
  • Compliance with legal and regulatory obligations: We collect and process personal data to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, in particular retention obligations, tax obligations, etc.
  • Job application: When you apply for a job, we process the data contained in your application documents (including contact details and information from the relevant communication) as well as references, if you have given your consent, and, in the case of successful applications, for the preparation and conclusion of a corresponding contract.
  • Other purposes: We may process personal data for the organization, implementation, and follow-up of events. The protection of other legitimate interests is also one of the other purposes, which cannot be listed exhaustively. We process all other data that you provide to us and make available for processing. If you have given us your consent to process your personal data for specific purposes, we will process your personal data within the scope of and based on this consent, unless we have another legal basis and require one. Consent that has been given can be revoked at any time, but this will not affect data processing that has already taken place.

Data collection

We collect information when we are in contact with you and from you (e.g. when you communicate with us or in connection with our services). We also collect and create personal data in the course of providing our legal services or when we receive personal data from other sources (e.g. from public sources such as debt collection registers, commercial registers, the media or the internet, or authorities, your employer or client who has a business relationship with us or is otherwise involved with us, as well as from other third parties such as counterparties or legal expenses insurers).

If you disclose data about other persons to us (e.g., family members, representatives, counterparties, or other related persons), we assume that you are authorized to do so and that this data is accurate and that you have ensured that these persons are aware of this disclosure, insofar as a legal obligation to provide information applies (e.g., by informing them of this privacy policy in advance).

Categories of recipients of personal data

In connection with the purposes listed above, we may disclose your personal data to the following categories of recipients in particular:

  • Service providers (such as IT providers, IT service companies, website hosts, payment institutions, banks, insurance companies, shipping companies, collection agencies, consulting firms, accounting firms, etc.) who process data on our behalf, in joint responsibility with us, or on their own responsibility;
  • Other contractual partners, provided that the transfer of your data is required by the contract (e.g. because you work for a contractual partner or they provide services for you). This category of recipients also includes entities with whom we cooperate, such as other law firms in Switzerland and abroad or legal expenses insurers. The recipients process the data on their own responsibility.
  • Courts and other authorities (in Switzerland and abroad) who process the data on their own responsibility;
  • Counterparties and persons involved

If necessary, we will obtain your consent for this or have our supervisory authority release us from our professional confidentiality obligation.

All these categories of recipients may involve third parties, so that your data may also become accessible to them.

Place of processing

Personal data is processed in Switzerland, in EU member states and EEA member states, and in the United Kingdom. These countries ensure adequate data protection.

We cannot guarantee that certain providers of IT systems, infrastructure, or cloud services will not process data in the US, other countries, or any country in the world.

In such cases, we agree to the standard data protection clauses approved by the EDÖB, use the revised standard contractual clauses of the European Commission, or ensure that appropriate binding corporate rules have been agreed upon. In exceptional cases, we may also transfer personal data abroad without entering into a separate contract, e.g. in the event of legal proceedings abroad, but also in cases of overriding public interest, if the performance of a contract requires such disclosure, or if you have separately consented to the disclosure, or if it is not possible to obtain your consent within a reasonable period of time and the disclosure is necessary to protect your life or physical integrity or that of a third party, or if it concerns data made publicly available by you, the processing of which you have not objected to. We may also rely on the exception for data from a register provided for by law to which we have been legitimately granted access.

Use of cookies and similar technologies

When using our website, cookies and similar technologies that can be used to identify your browser or device are stored on your computer. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your hard drive and assigned to the browser you are using, and through which certain information is transmitted to us. When you visit this website again, we can recognize you even if we do not know who you are. Cookies cannot execute programs or transfer viruses to your computer. They serve to make the Internet offering more user-friendly and effective overall. Most browsers automatically accept cookies. However, you can configure your browser settings according to your preferences and, for example, refuse to accept third-party cookies or all cookies. Please note that in this case you may not be able to use all the functions of this website.

We may also use visible and invisible image elements in any newsletters we send, to the extent permitted by law.

We also use plug-ins from social networks such as LinkedIn on our websites. These are visible to you (usually via corresponding symbols). We have configured these elements so that they are disabled by default. If you activate them (by clicking on them), the operators of the respective social networks can register that you are on our website and where, and can use this information for their own purposes. Your personal data will then be processed by these operators in accordance with their privacy policies. We do not receive any information about you from them. Some of the third-party providers we use may be located outside Switzerland.

In addition, we use other third-party services (which may also use cookies) on our website, in particular to improve the functionality or content of our website (e.g., integration of videos or maps), to compile statistics, and to display advertisements.

Currently, we can use services provided by the following service providers and advertising partners in particular. Their contact details and further information on the individual data processing operations can be found in the respective privacy policy:

Google Analytics
Provider: Google Ireland Ltd., Ireland
Privacy Notice: policies.google.com/privacy

Google Maps
Provider: Google LLC, USA
Privacy Notice: policies.google.com/privacy

LinkedIn
Provider: LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Ireland
Privacy Notice: www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

Some of the third-party providers we use may be located outside Switzerland. Information on cross-border data transfers can be found above. In terms of data protection law, these third-party providers may be either data processors of us (e.g. Google Analytics) or (independent) data controllers. Further information on this can be found in the privacy notices of the corresponding service providers.

Processing of personal data on social media

We maintain pages and other online presences on social networks and other platforms operated by third parties. In this context, we may process data about you. We may receive data from you (e.g., when you communicate with us or comment on our content) and from the platforms (e.g., statistics). The platform providers may analyze your usage and process this data together with other data they have about you. They also process this data for their own purposes (e.g., marketing and market research purposes and to manage their platforms), and act as individual data controllers for this purpose. For more information on processing by platform operators, please refer to the privacy notice of the respective platforms.

We currently use the LinkedIn platform, whereby the identity and contact details of this platform operator can be found in LinkedIn’s privacy policy  (Provider: LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Ireland, www.linkedin.com, privacy policy: www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy).

The platform operator may be located outside Switzerland.

Your rights

In accordance with the Data Protection Act, you have the right to access and correct your personal data, the right to object to our processing of your data, the right to revoke your consent, and the right to have your data deleted or transferred.

To exercise your rights, please contact us at the address above.

Applicability of the GDPR

We do not presume that the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) is applicable to data processing by us. Nonetheless, if the GDPR should apply to certain data processing on an exceptional basis, the following provisions shall apply exclusively for the purposes of the GDPR and the data processing subject to it.

In this case, we base the processing of your personal data in particular on the fact that

as described above it is necessary for the initiation, conclusion and performance of contracts and their administration and enforcement (article 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR);

it is necessary for the protection of legitimate interests of us or of third parties as described above, e.g., for communication with you or third parties, to operate our websites, to improve our electronic offers and registration for certain offers and services, for security purposes, for compliance with the law and internal regulations, for our risk management and corporate governance, and for other purposes such as training and education, administration, evidence and quality assurance, organization, implementation and follow-up of events and for the protection of other legitimate interests (article 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR);

it is required or permitted by law due to our mandate or position under the law of the EEA or a member state (article 6 para. 1 lit. c GDPR) or is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of other natural persons (article 6 para. 1 lit. d GDPR);

you have separately consented to the processing (article 6 para. 1 lit. a and article 9 para. 2 lit. a GDPR).

We would like to point out that we process your data for as long as it is necessary for our processing purposes, the legal retention periods and our legitimate interests, in particular for documentation and evidence purposes, or storage is technically required (e.g. in the case of backups or document management systems). If there are no legal or contractual obligations or technical reasons to the contrary, we generally delete or anonymize your data after the storage or processing period has expired as part of our usual processes and in accordance with our retention policy.

If you do not disclose certain personal data to us, this may mean that it is not possible to provide the related services or conclude a contract. In principle, we indicate which personal data requested by us are mandatory.

The aforementioned right to object to the processing of your data applies in particular to data processing for the purpose of direct marketing.

If you do not agree with our handling of your rights or data protection, please let us know. If you are in the EEA, you also have the right to complain to the data protection supervisory authority in your country. You can find a list of authorities in the EEA here: edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en.

Amendments

  • This privacy policy may be amended at any time without prior notice. The current version published on our website applies.
  • Version: 1 August 2025