Cyberfraud

Please be aware of the current, significant risk posed by cyber fraud (cyber crime), specifically relating to emails, email accounts, and bank account details. Our bank account details will be shared with you, initially, on the opening of an account with us via signed correspondence and subsequent telephone or face-to-face interaction. If our account details change, for any reason, we will notify you first by telephone or face-to-face interaction, and never by email. To further mitigate the risk of cyber fraud, always be careful when receiving banking details and you are requested to independently confirm bank account details with us before making any payment. Please verify the bank account details with us, either in person, or via a telephone call. Should you receive an email, whether on our letterhead or in any other form, advising you to use alternative banking details, please ignore it and inform us immediately, so that we can take appropriate action. In the event of any loss of funds attributable to a failure to verify our bank account details, Beech Veltman Incorporated, or its directors, will not be held liable for any loss or damages that may have been suffered directly or indirectly because of cyber fraud.

Privacy policy

Scope

The Information Officer is responsible for administering and overseeing the implementation of this Privacy Statement and, as applicable, supporting guidelines, standard operating procedures, notices, consents and appropriate related documents and processes. All employees, and individuals directly associated with the Firm are trained, according to their functions, in the regulatory requirements, policies and guidelines that govern the protection of personal information.

 

Why We Collect Personal Information

We collect personal information for the purposes of serving the legal and related needs of our clients. We require information to:

  • Understand, access and assist you, our client with your ongoing legal needs;
  • Ensure information is accurate and up-to-date;
  • Collect information through legal means on you and other individuals for the purposes of providing legal services to clients;

How do we collect your personal information?

Wherever possible we collect your personal information directly from you.

We may ask you for your consent, at the start of our engagement and during the course of our representation. Your consent may be in writing, verbal or implied as necessary to further your legal needs. Our privacy statement is your notice of the purposes for which we collect, use or disclose your personal information or business contact information.

Under certain circumstances, we will disclose your personal information without your consent:

  • when we are required or authorized by law to do so, for example if a court issues a subpoena;
  • when the use of the information is necessary to respond to an emergency that threatens the life, health or security of an individual or the public;
  • when it is necessary to establish or collect our fees; or
  • if the information is already publicly known.

Use of Your Information

We use your personal information to provide legal advice and services to you and to administer our legal business incidental to providing legal services, such as client billing.

With your permission, we may send you information about our other legal services, or about new developments in the law. You may at any time withdraw your consent by notifying us, and we will not send you any such material.

We do not disclose or sell your personal information or business contact information to any third party to enable them to market their products and services.

 

Who do we release information to?

When we release information about you, it is done to serve specific needs, in the course of providing legal services. With your consent, we may provide information to:

  • Our staff and agents who use the information to for the reasonable business purpose of providing you with legal services, including counsel;
  • To a third party we contract to provide administrative services to the law firm (like computer back-up services or archival file storage) and the third party agrees to comply with our privacy policy and privacy laws;
  • Professionals working with us such as investigators, paralegals and experts;
  • Financial institutions.

Security Safeguards

We recognise that information security is an integral element of data privacy. The Firm implements a range of commercially reasonable physical, technical, and procedural measures to help protect personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction in accordance with data protection law requirements. The Firm is committed to ensuring that information is only used for legitimate purposes and only by employees of our Firm.

 

Accuracy of information

We are responsible for ensuring that client information is complete, up to date and accurate before it is used. This means that it may be necessary to request that clients, from time to time, update their information and confirm that it is still accurate. If we are unable to reach a client for this purpose, their information will be deleted from our records in accordance with the storage periods governed by Law.

 

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We may review and change our Privacy Statement from time to time in order to update our privacy commitment to you in keeping with current privacy laws.

 

Contact Information & Resources

The contact details of our Information Officer are as follows:
Melanie Hart: melanie@bv- inc.co.za
Tel: 011 285 0011 / 079 893 8447