Standard Terms of Engagement

These Standard Terms of Engagement (“Terms”) apply in respect of all work carried out by Hall Law for you, except to the extent that it is otherwise agreed in writing.

1        Services

The services to be provided for you will be in strict accordance with your instructions which will be confirmed and outlined in our engagement letter provided to you, where practicable, in advance of undertaking such services.

2        Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009

We are required to comply with all laws binding on us including (but not limited to):

•   the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act); and

•   the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA); and

•   the Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

To meet these requirements, we may be required to conduct customer due diligence on you, persons acting on your behalf, and other relevant persons such as your beneficial owners or persons who have effective control of you as a client. We may not be able to act or continue acting for you until this is completed to the required standard. 

We will advise you what information and documents are required for these purposes. This information could include formal identification, address confirmation, source of funds, transaction details, ownership structures, tax identification details, and any other information considered relevant. Please ensure the information and documents requested are provided promptly to avoid any delays in us acting for you.

We will retain the information and documents and may be required to disclose them to government agencies as required by law. We may not be permitted to advise you of the instances when we are required to disclose this information. We may also be required to provide this information to banks with which we place your funds through our trust account.

3        Confidentiality

We will hold in strict confidence all information concerning you or your affairs that we acquire during the course of acting for you.  The only exceptions are when you authorise us to disclose such information to the extent necessary or desirable to enable us to carry out your instructions or where we are required by law to do so.

Naturally the reverse applies and we will not disclose to you any information in relation to any other client or any information which we may obtain through acting for other clients.

4        Fees

Our fees will be charged on the basis of what is fair and reasonable having regard to the circumstances of the matter and the nature of our work for you. While our time expended on each matter will be an important factor in assessing what is fair and reasonable we will also consider the results achieved and the urgency, level of skill, complexity, responsibility and specialist knowledge involved.

If our letter of engagement letter specifies a fixed fee, we will charge this for the agreed scope of our services.  Any work which falls outside that scope will be charged on a fair and reasonable basis having regard to the time expended and the other factors outlined above. We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if it becomes necessary for us to provide services outside the agreed scope and, if requested, give you an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.

In providing services we may incur disbursements or have to make payments to third parties on your behalf.  These will be included in our invoice to you when the expense is incurred.  We may charge an agency fee and require an advance payment for the disbursements or expenses which we will be incurring on your behalf.

Our invoices will include any New Zealand Goods and Services Tax (GST) applicable to our supply of services to you.We will send interim invoices to you, usually monthly and on completion of the matter, or termination of our engagement.  We may also send you an invoice when we incur a significant expense on your behalf. Our invoices will include an office service charge to cover the cost of routine copying, printing, telephone, fax and postal expenses.

Our invoices are payable within 14 days of the date of invoice. Where we do not receive payment by that date, we may charge you interest at the rate of 15% per annum.

We may deduct any fee, expense or disbursement for which we have provided you with an invoice from any funds held in our trust account on your behalf except where we receive the funds from you for a special purpose (other than as security for our fees).

Although you may expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses, and although our invoices may at your request or with your approval be directed to a third party, nevertheless you remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to pay us.

We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from clients (except monies received for payment of our invoices).  If we are holding significant funds on your behalf we will normally lodge those funds on interest bearing deposit with a bank.  In that case we may charge an administration fee of up to 5% of the gross interest earned.

4     Duty of Care

Our duty of care is to you as our client named in our confirmation of instruction. We do not owe any duty of care or liability to any other person. If any other person wishes to rely on our advice they can do so only if we expressly agree.

5     Conflicts of Interest

We have policies in place to identify and respond to conflicts of interest.  If a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest arises we will consult with you about the best way to resolve the matter and follow the requirements and procedures set out in the Law Society's Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers.

6     Document Destruction

Subject to any legal requirement, we will retain the file that we create for your work on any one matter for a minimum of seven years after we finish working for you on that matter. We may hold that file electronically rather than physically. After that time we may destroy that file without contacting you.

7     Termination

Where you give us any instruction and we rely on that instruction (for example by giving an undertaking to a third party) you may not revoke that instruction. Otherwise you may end our engagement at any time on any matter or matters. We may, on reasonable notice, end our engagement at anytime.

If our engagement is terminated, you must pay all fees due up to the date of termination and all expenses incurred up to that date. Provided that you have paid all of our invoices on all matters, we will (on request) provide to you all the documents that we have obtained or created through working for you on the matter or matters in question. Before we provide these documents to you, we may take a complete copy of them.

If our engagement is terminated, these terms continue to apply in respect of your instructions.

8     Electronic Services and Communication

Where we provide any electronic service to you or communicate with you by electronic means we will take every reasonable precaution to ensure that those services and communications are accurate, reliable, adequate, confidential and secure.

We cannot, however, always be certain that those services and communications are error free. Also, because they will in most cases be internet based certain risks exist that are outside of our control. Consequently, despite the other provisions of these terms we cannot, and do not represent or warrant that those services and communications will always be accurate, reliable, adequate, complete, confidential and secure.

9     General

These terms of engagement apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement, whether or not we send you another copy of them. There is no need to sign these terms of engagement in order to accept them; you will accept these terms of engagement by continuing to instruct us to work for you.

We are entitled to change these terms of engagement from time to time, in which case we will send you amended terms.

Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and New Zealand courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

In these terms of engagement “we” and “us” means Hall Law and “you” means our client. Where you are a company or other corporate or unincorporated entity, we act only for you. We do not act for your shareholders, directors or members unless we expressly agree otherwise.