§ 1 MANDATE, APPLICABILITY OF GENERAL CONDITIONS

1. The following General Conditions shall apply to all contracts, which are the basis for services rendered by the Partnership to the Client, including but not limited to consulting and advisory services, litigation and potential management services. The notary’s office is not covered by these General Conditions.

2. The scope of the General Conditions also covers all future legal relationships between the Partnership and the Client.

3. Stipulations of a consultancy agreement entered into in an individual case shall prevail over these General Conditions.

4. Client’s general terms and conditions shall only apply if the parties have expressly agreed thereto in writing.

§ 2 PARTNERSHIP-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP

1. Subject of the mandate is the agreed activity, not the achievement of a specific result. Generally, the mandate is given to the Partnership unless the representation by a single attorney is required by law or has been agreed to by separate written agreement. In any case the Partnership shall be exclusively entitled to the fee.  The allocation of the respective attorney in charge will be decided by the Partnership according to the subject-area-related internal business distribution of the Partnership.  Any statements of the Partnership in the partnership-brochure or on its website or in other directories are for information purposes only and thus non-binding.  In particular in an individual case they will not lead to a business allocation deviating from the actual circumstances.

2. All information, advice and explanations provided by the Partnership by telephone are binding only if confirmed in writing.

§ 3 CORRESPONDENCE, PROFESSIONAL CONFIDENTIALITY, DATA PROTECTION AND IDENTIFICATION

1. The Partnership may use e-mail to correspond with the Client and third parties. Partnership points out that the electronic data-transfer per e-mail via internet is not safe with regard to confidentiality and authenticity and that loss of data may occur in the event of transferring data per e-mail via internet as well as viruses maybe transmitted unnoticed. Should the Client not want communication by e-mail, due to the possibility that third parties could take note of the content of the e-mails or for other reasons, in particular due to the aforementioned security reasons, the Partnership has to be informed accordingly.

2. The Partnership is infinitely obliged to maintain secrecy with regard to all information of the Client, which becomes known to it in the context of the mandate.  Client agrees that information of the Client may be transmitted to auditors, tax advisors, foreign attorneys and other third parties who are on their part bound by professional secrecy, as far as the Partnership deems this necessary for the accomplishment of the mandate.  Apart from this, forwarding of information to third parties not involved in the accomplishment of the mandate requires the consent of the Client.

3. The Partnership is entitled, within the scope of the purpose of the mandate, to collect, record and process the personal data of the Client by observing the rules of data protection.

4.  The Partnership is entitled, as far as the character of the mandate requires it by law, to secure and to record name, date of birth, place of birth, address as well as the number and the issuing authority of the identity card or the pass port of the Client and to keep these records for six years.

§ 4 LIABILITY

1. The liability of the Partnership as well as the personal liability of the attorneys arising out of the contractual relationship with the Client for damages caused by ordinary negligence is limited to € 1.000.000,00 for each case of damage. The personal liability of the attorneys furthermore is restricted to the respective partners of the Partnership which were handling the assignment during which a damage was caused to the Client by an occupational mistake of the acting attorneys.

2. The limitation of liability shall not apply in case of damages caused intentionally or grossly negligently by the Partnership respectively its employees as well as in the case of damages to life, body and health caused by an intentional or negligent breach of duty on the side of the Partnership or their legal representatives or vicarious agents.

3. Prior to commencing any matter Client shall notify the Partnership of all circumstances known to him, which could be relevant with regard to the amount of a potential damage. In the event of the occurrence of subsequent circumstances, which could be relevant for the calculation of a potential damage, Client shall notify the Partnership immediately.
 
4. In the event a matter contains an identifiable liability risk in excess of € 1.000.000,00 for the Partnership, the parties shall agree on whether a separate liability insurance will be entered into in the amount of the possible liability risk. Client assumes the cost for the increased insurance premium.

5. The Partnership excludes any liability with regard to legal questions concerning foreign law or advice by third parties. As far as the Partnership draws on third parties, the liability of the Partnership shall be limited to intentional or grossly negligent breach of duty with regard to selecting the third party.

§ 5  FEE AGREEMENT ACCORDING TO SECTION 34 GERMAN ATTONEYS FEE ACT (RVG)

1.  Unless otherwise agreed between the parties the Client and the Partnership agree for an oral or a written advice or for information (legal consultant) which is not connected with any other services that are subject to remuneration according to the German Attorneys Fee Act, for the preparation of a written legal opinion and for services as a mediator, on a remuneration on the basis of the time spent and an hourly rate of € 200,00 per hour for the services of an employed attorney and € 375,00 per hour for the services of a partner of the Partnership and, in case a full hour was not spent, the fees shall be calculated pro rata temporis.

2. In addition to the fees according to the abovementioned § 5 para. 1, the Parties agree to a lump some in the amount of 5 % of the net amount of the fees calculated on the basis of time spent in order to cover the expenses for mail, telecommunication, letters and copies. Court fees, travel expenses and other payments made by the Partnership on behalf of the Client will be reimbursed by the client. In addition, the applicable value added tax will be added to the net invoice amount. 

3. The partnership is entitled to provide monthly invoices.

4. The fees according to this fee agreement shall not provide for a right of the Client to deduction any amount from other fees payable to the Partnership for other services (§ 34 para. 2 RVG).

§ 6 TERMINATION OF THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT-RELATIONSHIP

1. The Client may terminate the contractual relationship at any time by giving written notice, becoming effective with the receipt of the notification. 

2. The Partnership is also entitled to terminate the contractual relationship, however, the termination shall not be mistimed, unless the trust-relationship necessary for working on the mandate is severely impaired. 

3. The obligation of the Partnership to store all documents received from the Client or third parties in the context of the accomplishment of the mandate expires 5 years after the termination of the mandate.  The Partnership does not owe longer storage.  This does however not apply to non-appealable titles obtained by the Partnership within the scope of the mandate.  In case documents are mailed, the last address notified by the Client may be used.  The Client bears the sender’s risk, unless he had objected to the mailing and declared bindingly to pick-up the documents without undue delay.

§ 7 ASSIGNMENT FOR SECURITY, SETTING-OFF WITH RECEIVABLES

1. The Client assigns for security purposes to the Partnership all refund claims and other pecuniary claims to which he is entitled vis á vis the opponent or state treasury, up to the amount of the fee payable to the Partnership.  The Partnership will not collect refund- or pecuniary-claims as long as the Client meets all payment obligations, in particular as long as Client does not refuse payment or does not fall in default or no applications for opening insolvency or com-position proceedings with regard to his property are filed.
 
2. The Partnership is authorized to offset incoming refund-payments and all other payments to which the Client is entitled with all outstanding fees payable to the Partnership or with any work already performed by the Partnership but not invoiced yet.

§ 8 MISCELLANEOUS

1. The setting-off with claims against claims of the Partnership is permitted only with undisputed or final claims.

2. The contractual relationship shall exclusively be governed and construed with in accordance with the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany.

3. Modifications and amendments of these General Conditions require written form and need to be expressly identified as such.  Same shall apply with regard to modifications of this provision.

4. Should any provision of these General Conditions be or become entirely or partially invalid this shall have no effect on the remaining General Conditions.