Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy, together with our cookie policy and any other documents referred to in it), sets out the basis on which any personal information that we collect about you will be processed. Reference to Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP, or ‘we’ / ‘our’ / ‘us’, should be taken to include reference to all subsidiaries of Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP practising in the UK and overseas.
This policy applies to all personal information we collect when you interact with us including when you engage our legal or other services, when we refer work to you or you refer work to us, when you make an enquiry or request information from us or as a result of your relationship with our clients or staff. This policy also applies to information we collect through your use of this website www.penningtonslaw.com and any other online service created or hosted by us on which the privacy policy appears. If you engage us to carry out work for you, we will have client confidentiality obligations to you, as set out in our Terms of Business and our letter of engagement to you. If you apply for a job or placement with us the provisions of our privacy policy for candidates will apply and can be viewed here. If you have a working relationship with us the provisions of our fair processing notice for partners, employees, workers and contractors will apply.
Please read the following carefully to understand how we will treat your personal information.
Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP (‘we’ / ‘our’ / ‘us’) is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (Registered No. OC311575) and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. References to ‘partner’ include members and employees/consultants of equivalent standing within the LLP and its associated undertakings or businesses operating overseas. A list of the members is open to inspection at its registered office, 125 Wood Street, London, EC2V 7AW.
We own and operate the following:
This privacy notice is issued on behalf of all the entities referred to in the paragraph above. Unless we inform you otherwise the relevant entity processing your data will be Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP and Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP is the data controller in respect of your personal information.
We collect personal information so that we can operate effectively and provide you with the best possible service. The information we collect depends on how you interact with our website and how you use our services. It also depends on the choices you make, for example the website functions you use and your privacy settings. You may choose not to provide certain information but if you do, and that information is necessary to provide a particular feature, then you may not be able to use that feature. We will only use your personal information where we have a lawful basis to do so.
The tables below summarises what information we collect about you, explains how we intend to use it and what our legal basis is for using it. Click on the links below to take you to the section which is relevant to you:
In the tables, the following types of information include:
We may, in providing our services and operating our businesses, share your personal information with other Penningtons Manches Cooper entities. We may also share your personal information with third parties where:
We use third party service providers to support us in the performance of the activities set out in the table above including:
Further information on how client information may be shared and processed can be found in our Terms of Business. If you require further information regarding the identity of other third party service providers we use, please e-mail data@penningtonslaw.com or contact our Data Protection Officer at our Basingstoke office.
We may also share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or otherwise to comply with the law.
We require all our third party service providers to take appropriate and stringent security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes in accordance with our instructions.
In the course of providing our services and operating our business, it may be necessary for us to share personal information with our overseas offices, some of which are outside the UK and European Economic Area (EEA).
The level of protection in countries outside the UK and EEA may be less than that offered within the UK or EEA. To ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection, we have put in place appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the EU and UK laws on data protection. Where our third party service providers process personal data outside the UK or EEA in the course of providing services to us, our contractual arrangements with these will include appropriate measures to meet UK or EU-approved data protection obligations, usually standard contractual clauses. If you require further information about these protective measures, please e-mail data@penningtonslaw.com or contact our Data Protection Officer at our Basingstoke office.
We will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for or for as long as we have a lawful basis to retain it.
Your personal information will be retained in accordance with our data retention policy which categorises the information we hold and provides appropriate retention periods each category, based on the purpose for which the information is processed and taking into account legal and regulatory requirements, limitation periods for taking legal action, good practice and business requirements. For example, for legal reasons we may need to retain some of your personal information for 15 years (or 25 years where minors or disabilities are involved) after you engaged our services. In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. If you require further information regarding our data retention policy please e-mail data@penningtonslaw.com
Client due diligence information will be retained for five years from the conclusion of our business relationship with you, unless there is legitimate reason to retain it for a further five years.
If you become aware that your child or any child under your care has provided us with information without your consent please contact us at data@penningtonslaw.com.
All information that you provide to us is stored on secure servers. We have put in place appropriate measures to protect the security of your information.
The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of the information transmitted to our site and you acknowledge that any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access or inadvertent disclosure.
You are responsible for keeping confidential any passwords that you have to access our services (such as our extranets). Please do not share your password(s) with anyone else. If you lose control of your password you may lose control over your personal information. If your password has been compromised for any reason please let us know immediately by contacting us at: data@penningtonslaw.com.
You have the right under data protection laws to access information held about you, subject to certain conditions, and to request its rectification or deletion.
You can see, review and update your marketing preferences via our website. Alternatively, or if you would like to access, update or amend any other information which we hold about you or would like us to stop using your personal information please contact data@penningtonslaw.com.
We would like to send you information about legal updates, client seminars and similar events which may be of interest to you (including, for example promotional materials and newsletters). We will do this if we have a lawful basis for doing so in compliance with relevant privacy law (see Marketing and business development above) or if you consented to us doing so (for example, when you registered via our website or instructed us). For a link to the subscription form we use when seeking such consent click here.
You have the right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes or giving your information to other members of our group. If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, you can unsubscribe by using the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our marketing messages or by emailing data@penningtonslaw.com. You can also update your marketing preferences.
We use and provide links to websites which are controlled by third parties and these include the following:
If you use or follow a link to any of these third party websites you should be aware that these websites have their own privacy policies and we cannot accept responsibility for their use of your information.
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and will post any updates on this webpage. This privacy policy was last updated in May 2023.
To learn more about what’s new see our website or contact our Data Protection Officer at our Basingstoke office.
In May 2018 we published a new privacy statement to improve usability and increase clarity and transparency.
In August 2019 we amended this policy to take into account the acquisition of Thomas Cooper LLP and its overseas offices.
In May 2020 we amended this policy to clarify how we process Client Due Diligence Information.
In May 2023 we updated the details of our Greek Partnership and the provisions on international transfers of personal data.
Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP (registered number OC311575) is the data controller in respect of your personal information. Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP's registered office is at 125 Wood Street, London EC2V 7AW.
We have appointed a data protection officer to oversee compliance with this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or how we handle your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at / 01256 407100 / Matrix House, Basing View, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 4DZ or by emailing data@penningtonslaw.com.
If for any reason you are not happy with the way that we have handled your personal information, please contact us at data@penningtonslaw.com or contact our Data Protection Officer at our Basingstoke office. If you are still not happy, you have the right to make a make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office see: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.