Overview
Balogun Harold is an investment and finance law firm structured along select industry sector expertise. Balogun Harold undertakes debt finance, private funds & private equity/strategic investment deals on behalf of foreign investors and lenders doing business in Nigeria.
This Privacy Policy describes how Balogun Harold (collectively referred to as “Balogun Harold”, “the firm”, “we”, “us” or “our”), processes Personal Data when we provide legal services to clients, manage our business and other relationships or when you use our websites, newsletters or otherwise communicate with us (collectively, the “Services”). We are committed to ensuring the privacy and integrity of the Personal Data you share with us or we otherwise collect as we provide these Services.
Throughout this Privacy Policy, “Personal Data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual.
Information We Collect
In most cases, we collect Personal Data directly from you. However, we may also obtain Personal Data about you from third parties or automatically when you interact with our Services.
Where applicable, we indicate whether and why you must provide us with your Personal Data, as well as the consequences of failing to do so. If you do not provide Personal Data when requested, you may not be able to benefit from the Services if that information is necessary to provide such Services or if we are legally required to collect it.
Below is a description of the different types of Personal Data we process and the sources from which we obtain them:
Clients: If you are a client of our firm, we collect your name, contact details, payment information and any other information you provide to us or we otherwise obtain from third parties (e.g., from public bodies, from the opposing party etc.) when providing legal services to you. The type of information we collect from our clients varies depending on the matter and may include information about our clients’ employees, customers, and vendors (e.g., name, contact details), communications with our client, information provided by our client, and any other information that may be relevant for the matter, including Personal Data about criminal offenses, if applicable.
Balogun Harold business partners and vendors: We may receive contact details and payment information from business partners’ and vendors’ employees in furtherance of the relevant partner or vendor relationship.
Events: We collect Personal Data about you if you choose to register for an event sponsored by our firm. This Personal Data may include your name, address, title, company, phone number, and email address, as well as specific information relevant to the event for which you are registering.
Newsletters and informational programs: As part of our value-added services, we are pleased to offer a wide selection of newsletters, client alerts, and programs on topics of interest to our clients and others. If you sign up to receive our client alerts and newsletters focusing on key legal, regulatory, and industry trends, and our invitations to informational programs and networking events, we may ask you to provide your first and last name, company, email address and the practice areas and industries that you are interested in.
Communications: If you choose to contact us for any purpose, we will collect your contact details, your name, and the content, date and time of your message, as well as our reply and any follow up action we take in relation to your inquiry.
Automated forms: If you decide to make partial or full use of forms we make available for online or offline use by you, including any documents that are offered as simplified, automated, industry-standard financing documents or templates, we may receive contact details or notifications about partial or full use of said forms. Furthermore, if you choose to contact us through contact options made available to you that are related to the resources made available to you, regardless of the purpose that prompted your effort to contact us (including online requests for more information) we will collect your contact details, your name, and the content, date and time of your message, as well as our reply and any follow up action we take in relation to your inquiry.
Job applicants: We collect Personal Data about you if you apply for a job with us via our website, email or any other platform. The Personal Data we may require includes your first and last name, cover letter, resume, transcripts, phone number, email address, university, law school, graduation year, department, and position.
Other sources: We may receive Personal Data about you from other sources, including third parties that help us update, expand, and analyze our records, identify new customers, or prevent or detect fraud. We may also receive information about you from social media platforms, for example when you interact with us on those platforms or access our social media content. The information we may receive is governed by the privacy settings, policies, and/or procedures of the relevant social media platform, and we encourage you to review them.
We do not collect any 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) .
Cookies and Similar Technologies
Cookies are small text files placed on a computer or other device and are used to identify a user or device and to collect information. Through the use of cookies and similar technologies, we may collect your device IP address, unique device ID, hardware and software type, Internet service provider, serving domain, geographical area, location data, browser type and settings data (such as screen resolution, color depth, time zone settings, browser extension and plug-ins) operating system, referring URLs, search history, information on actions taken or interaction with our digital assets (e.g., page views) and dates and times of actions.
Use of Personal Data
We may use your Personal Data for the following purposes:
To provide legal services to our clients, including to advise clients on legal matters, represent them in the context of legal proceedings such as court proceedings, arbitration and settlement, and dealings with regulatory authorities; to file trademark or patent applications; to manage and collect information for potential or actual litigation proceedings, including e-Discovery; to conduct due diligence in the context of IPOs, mergers and acquisitions and other transactions; and to process payments and advance payments on behalf of our clients.
For marketing purposes, including to send client alerts, newsletters and other communications to our clients and business contacts. We will send you communications that are relevant to you, based for example on the practice areas and industries you select when you subscribe to receive our communications. We may also use your Personal Data to register you for, and confirm your attendance at, events; furnish biographical details to other attendees; provide you with the opportunity to participate in on-demand learning; and assess the effectiveness of our events, promotional campaigns, and publications.
To manage our business relationships with customers, clients, vendors and suppliers, business partners, cooperating law firms and other contractors, including processing invoices and sending service-related communications.
For recruitment purposes, including to evaluate job applications, invite you for a job interview and arrange for travel.
To communicate with you, and respond to your inquiries.
For other business purposes, such as to provide, operate and improve our products and services, perform data analyses, detect, prevent, and respond to actual or potential fraud, illegal activities, or intellectual property infringement, defend our legal rights, and comply with our legal obligations and internal policies.
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.
Failure to 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 Services). In this case, we may have to cancel a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
Legal grounds for using Personal Data
We only process your Personal Data when we can rely on a valid legal ground such as:
Consent. You have consented to the use of your Personal Data, for example to send you newsletters or for the use of certain cookies.
Execution of a Contract. We need your Personal Data to provide you with our Services, including to provide legal services, to operate our website, to evaluate your job application or to otherwise respond to your queries.
Compliance with a Legal obligation. We are required or allowed to collect and use your Personal Data, for example to detect fraud or to comply with our tax, accounting and anti-money laundering obligations.
Legitimate interest. We or a third party, have a legitimate interest in processing your Personal Data. For example, we have a legitimate interest in using your Personal Data to conduct business analytics or to improve the safety, security and performance of our products and Services. We only rely on our or a third party’s legitimate interests to process your Personal Data when these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.
Disclosure of Personal Data
We may disclose Personal Data about you as described below:
With Balogun Harold’s affiliates, subsidiaries, offices and representatives around the world as needed to provide legal services.
With third party contractors engaged by Balogun Harold in the course of business (e.g., accountants, insurance companies, banks, auditors, Balogun Harold’s network of external legal counsel and other professional experts, advisors and/or consultants engaged by Balogun Harold).
With government agencies, regulators or courts, as required by applicable law and/or in the context of legal proceedings.
As necessary to provide legal services to our clients, including opposing counsel.
With event partners or co-sponsors.
With vendors and service providers who perform services on our behalf, including dealers, distributors, marketing and research agencies, with whom Balogun Harold has a direct contractual relationship.
With social networks when you use your credentials to log in to some of our Services.
If you post other information to our website or social media platforms such as comments, that information may be displayed and viewable by other users.
If you gave us your permission, or if we believe doing so is required or appropriate to (i) comply with laws, law enforcement requests, and legal process, such as a court order or subpoena; (ii) respond to your requests; or (iii) protect your, our or others’ rights, property, or safety.
In case of merger, sale, or other asset transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy or liquidation where the business will not continue as a going concern, sale of Balogun Harold’s assets, or transition of our products or Services to another firm, then your Personal Data may be transferred as part of such a transaction as permitted by law and/or contract.
Your Legal Rights and Choices
Depending on applicable law, you may have some rights and choices with respect to your Personal Data. Those rights may be limited by local law requirements. You may exercise these rights by contacting us as specified below:
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 continuing 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.
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.
Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, including in your country of residence, place of work or where an incident took place. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach your jurisdiction’s supervising authority so please contact us in the first instance at Balogun Harold.
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 receive marketing materials relating to our Services by email, you may withdraw your consent for us to send these to you at any time, by clicking the “unsubscribe” option included in the marketing email. Alternatively, you can let us know your preferences by sending an email to us.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at support@balogunharold.com.
International Data Transfers
We store and process your Personal Data on our database in Nigeria. Where we need to transfer your data to another country, we would ensure that such country has an adequate data protection law. We will seek your consent where we need to send your data to a country without an adequate data protection law.
Links to Other Websites
This website may link to websites maintained by outside organizations, including third-party social networks (such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and our clients. Please be aware that these third-party websites are governed by their own privacy policies. Our firm is not responsible for the content or policies maintained by these websites. Please familiarize yourself with the privacy policy of any third-party website you visit, as it will govern any information you submit through that website.
Security
We maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards that are intended to appropriately protect Personal Data against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss, unauthorized alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, misuse, and any other unlawful form of processing of the Personal Data in our possession. However, because no information system can be 100% secure, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.
Data Retention
We will only retain your Personal Data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your Personal Data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.
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, nature and length of our relationship with you, the type of Services requested by or provided to you, the purposes for which we process your Personal Data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, the possible re-enrolment with our Services, the impact on our Services if we delete some information from or about you and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your Personal Data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
Changes to This Policy
We may make changes to this Privacy Policy. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. If we make material changes, we may notify you via a notice posted on our website or other method. We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy periodically to stay up-to-date about our privacy practices.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at:
Balogun Harold
13a Sola Oguntade Close,
Lekki Phase 1, Lagos, Nigeria.
support@balogunharold.com