Legal & privacy notices

1. Introduction

These terms of use, which we may update from time to time, set out how you may use our website, and tell you what happens on our end when you use it. By using our website you accept these terms of use and agree to abide by them.

These general web terms of use also apply to our UK Slicing Pie letter of intent. For our additional terms and conditions relating to that, what it costs (it’s free!) and how you may use it, see our UK Slicing Pie letter of intent terms below.

2. Using information on our website

We spend a lot of time researching the information we share on our website. We also describe our own experiences of using Slicing Pie, because we want to help others to share equity fairly. However, dynamic equity is a fast-developing field, and everyone has different experiences. Thus, the information and all the materials we provide on our website are for general information purposes only.

The information provided on our website does not constitute legal or other professional advice. For that, we would need to understand your particular situation, and you would need to be one of our clients. If you would like advice on a specific legal issue, please contact us. If we can help, then we'd be happy to discuss you becoming one of our clients. If you instruct us, we will send you an engagement letter setting out the work we would do, our fees, and our standard terms of business before we begin.

Our website contents are naturally subject to change, so whilst we endeavour to make them so, we do not guarantee that they are accurate and/or up to date. You are therefore responsible for checking the accuracy of any facts and opinions given on our website before entering into any commitment based on them. In addition, we do not endorse and are not responsible for the content of any external websites that are linked from or link to our website.

You therefore agree to use our website and the information on it entirely at your own risk. We accept no responsibility whatsoever, and hereby exclude to the fullest extent permitted by law, liability for any loss or damage (including without limitation direct, indirect, incidental or consequential loss, loss of profits and other economic loss of any kind) which may be caused to you, your computer equipment or to any third party by using our website or relying on the information and materials within it, save to the extent that any person suffers death or personal injury as a result of our negligence.

3. Intellectual property

We create our own website content wherever we can. This includes any articles that we write for our blog, and any images that we make and design. We also respect others' intellectual property rights, so if we use third party content, we will acknowledge those third parties.

We own all intellectual property rights in our website content (unless owned by third parties), and our UK Slicing Pie letter of intent and all updates we make to it, which shall remain the property of Fairsquare LLP.

Save in relation to use of our UK Slicing Pie letter of intent, which is subject to the specific terms set out below:

• you are allowed to read our website content and make copies for your own personal use, and
• you may also provide occasional copies (or reasonable extracts quoted in context) to others subject to these terms of use,

provided that you do not do so for profit, and provided that you acknowledge Fairsquare LLP as copyright owner.

All other use, copying and reproduction of all or any part of our website content, whether directly or indirectly, is prohibited without first obtaining our written consent.

4. Thank you

Thank you for browsing our website. We hope you enjoy your visit. If you have any questions about these terms of use, please email us at hello@fairsquareLLP.com.

The following specific terms and conditions apply to our UK Slicing Pie letter of intent, in addition to our general web terms of use.

How much does this letter cost and how may we use it?

Nothing - if you are a startup team that wants to use Slicing Pie to share your startup’s equity amongst yourselves dynamically! We’re making our UK Slicing Pie letter of intent completely free for teams to use for their own equity-sharing purposes, under Creative Commons licence Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

In practical terms, this means that if you’re a startup that wants to use this to record your own equity sharing commitment: 

• you can share, copy and distribute this to your team members to consider, and tailor it for your own use,
• but you should: 
  • credit Fairsquare LLP as the author of the original letter, 
  • indicate any changes you’ve made (making clear that you are responsible for them, not that we approved or advised on them or your proposed use),
  • only use the letter for the non-commercial purpose of sharing equity dynamically in your business amongst you and your team, and
  • not distribute your tailored letter for others to use.

(If you want to access, link/refer to or use this letter for any other purpose, i.e. you’re not a startup that wants to use Slicing Pie and this letter to share its own equity, then please contact us at hello@fairsquareLLP.com, so we can discuss your interest, proposed use and options, e.g. if you’re an educational provider, incubator, accelerator, law firm, finance provider, business providing goods/services to startups etc.)

Does this letter of intent limit us to implementing Slicing Pie with Fairsquare LLP?

No, it doesn’t. Though if you’re setting up in the UK, as the UK’s premier Slicing Pie law firm, we’ll be delighted if you do! 

How is this letter of intent different from doing full legal Slicing Pie dynamic equity implementation?

It’s very different! One way to think about it is that your letter of intent is like an architect’s house drawing. Whereas sorting out your corporate legal arrangements is like building the actual house, all of you taking ownership of it and moving in to live together - so that you could eventually sell it. Putting in place your full legal Slicing Pie dynamic equity arrangements means you all get legal ownership of your dynamic equity shares in the business - tax-efficiently. But you are only aiming for this if you just sign a letter of intent. 

Can you advise us and/or our team if we have questions about Slicing Pie before we sign this letter? 

Alas no. Please read Slicing Pie and/or contact Prof. Mike Moyer if you have questions about the Slicing Pie model itself. You can book consultations directly with him via his website. He’s spoken with thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide, and is hugely knowledgeable. We always refer general enquiries to Prof. Moyer, out of respect and because it is his main Slicing Pie income stream. So be cool please and contact Mike!

Can you advise us and/or our team if we have questions about this letter before we sign it? 

Alas no. We only have capacity to advise teams when they are ready to do their Slicing Pie legals. This letter is a free resource so: 

• we do not have capacity to advise teams on individual changes or deletions, and 
• we accept no liability for any changes or deletions you might make. 

If you have questions about this letter of intent, please read through these FAQ and our website. 

If we sign this letter of intent and later on something goes wrong, can we sue you?

No! We are providing this letter and FAQ guidance completely free, and without liability. If you use or rely on this letter and/or any of this FAQ guidance, then you do so entirely at your own risk. If you want to make your dynamic equity holdings legally binding and tax-efficient, then you must put in place formal Slicing Pie legal arrangements that are appropriate to your business, e.g. shareholders' agreements, articles, tax elections, financing and IP agreements, LLP deeds, worker agreements etc. 

1. Introduction

This privacy notice sets out how we use your personal data. Your personal data is data that can be used to identify you, either by itself or when combined with other data available to us. The Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA 2018”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) impose certain legal obligations in connection with the processing of personal data. Fairsquare LLP is a data controller within the meaning of the GDPR and we process personal data.

2. What personal data do we collect?

We collect the following types of personal data from or about you as a client or potential client:

• If you sign up to our blog mailing list, your name and email address;
• If you submit an enquiry to us, your name, email address, mobile or telephone number, Skype name, and any other information and personal details you decide to and/or have authority to send to us on behalf of you and your business and team members;
• If you visit our website, the data transmitted from your browser, including your IP address, the date and time of your visit, the pages accessed, access/HTTP status code, your browser, operating system and interface, referral source, length of visit, page views, website navigation, language and version of browser software and geographical location;
• If you engage us to provide legal services, your name, email address, address, mobile or telephone number, taxpayer reference number e.g. NI number, Skype name, and any other information and personal details you decide to and/or have authority to send to us on behalf of you and your business and team members, including date of birth, passport and/or driving licence numbers for Know Your Client (“KYC”) purposes.

We tell you if providing some data is optional, including if we need your consent to process it. In all other cases, you must provide your personal data in order for us to provide you with the information and/or services you request.

3. Why do we process your personal data?

We process personal data we collect for the following purposes and on the following legal bases:

• to operate our website and provide you with access to pages you wish to access;
• if you signed up, i.e. opted in, to our blog mailing list, to send you marketing communications with information on Slicing Pie and UK startups, including the latest news on getting Slicing Pie to work in the UK, occasional musings on being grunts, and changes in the law that may affect you;
• to consider and respond to your enquiry;
• to comply with our professional obligations as solicitors regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales;
• to enable us to supply legal professional services to you as our client;
• to fulfil our obligations under relevant laws in force from time to time (e.g. for KYC purposes, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (“MLR 2017”));
• to help us manage our practice, invoice you for our services, keep accurate client records, and generally administer and take care of our relationship with you; and
• to use in the investigation, resolution and/or defence of potential complaints, disciplinary proceedings and legal proceedings.

You are free at any time to change your mind and withdraw your consent. However, if you do so then we will not be able to help, and if you are already a client, we may need to cease to act.

4. Cookies

A cookie is a small text file of letters and numbers sent by a web server to a web browser and stored by the browser. This information is sent back by the browser to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to retain things like user preferences, store information for shopping carts, and identify a web browser in order to provide anonymised tracking data. Cookies come in two types: “session” cookies and “persistent” cookies. Session cookies are deleted from your computer when you close your browser. Persistent cookies remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach a specified expiry date.

We use both session cookies and persistent cookies on our website. We use session cookies to keep track of you whilst you navigate the website. We use persistent cookies to enable our website to recognise you again when you visit. We do this using Google Analytics, which analyses cookies and generate reports on how our website is used. Google analyses and stores this information, and its privacy policy is available at: https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Generally, cookies enhance your browsing experience. However, you can control and manage cookies on this website and on others if you wish to. The most effective way to do this is by changing your cookie preference settings in your browser. You can get guidance on how to do this by looking at the Help section of your browser. Disabling essential cookies may however affect your ability to use the entire functionality of a website.

5. Third parties with whom we may share personal data

We do not sell personal data. We keep your data confidential and provide it to our third party service providers or agents and to other professional advisors only where you so instruct. In order to provide services to you, we may share your personal data with the third parties identified below in order to comply with our legal obligations, including our legal obligations to you:

• subcontractors who help us provide our services and/or provide professional services to us, including for the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation);
• any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond;
• professional indemnity insurers;
• our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and our professional body, the Law Society in relation to practice assurance, compliance, and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation).

If the law allows or requires us to do so, we may also share your personal data with:

• the police and law enforcement agencies
• courts and tribunals
• the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”)
• HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”).

If you ask us not to share your personal data with such third parties, we may be unable to act or may need to cease to act.

6. Where do we process and store your data?

We store and process your personal data both inside and outside the UK, using securely encrypted cloud, backup and analytics services that comply with GDPR, ISO/IEC 27001 and/or other data protection standards. When we transfer data out of the EEA, we ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by, e.g. entering into European Commission-approved contracts which give personal data the same protection it has within the EEA, and/or transferring it to a country deemed by the European Commission to provide an adequate level of protection.

7. Retention of personal data

When acting as a data controller and in accordance with recognised good practice within the legal sector we retain all of our records relating to you as follows (and if more than one category applies to the same personal data, then we retain for the period of the longest applicable category):

• Retention in case of queries: We retain your personal data as long as necessary to deal with your queries.
• Retention in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements: We retain your personal data after your enquiry or matter has been closed or has otherwise come to an end, based on our legal and regulatory requirements.
• Retention in case of claims: We retain your personal data for as long as you might legally bring claims against us.

For clients, our contractual terms provide for the destruction of client files after 6 years (or for certain types of files, such longer periods as may be required in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements and/or our professional rules). Further information on our document retention policy is set out in our Terms of Business, which are available on request.

8. Your rights

Requesting personal data we hold about you (subject access requests)

You have a right to request access to your personal data that we hold. Such requests are known as ‘subject access requests’ (“SARs”).

Please provide all SARs in writing marked for the attention of the Data Protection Officer, Fairsquare LLP.

To help us provide the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should include enough details to enable us to verify your identity and locate the relevant information. For example, you should tell us:

• your name and current address
• the name(s) of the business(es) you originally contacted us about
• the date(s) you originally contacted or engaged us
• any previous or other name(s) you used at that time
• any reference number(s) that we may have given you
• your date of birth
• your national insurance number
• what type of information you want to know.

The DPA 2018 requires that we comply with a SAR promptly and in any event within one month of receipt. There are, however, some circumstances in which the law allows us to refuse to provide access to personal data in response to a SAR (e.g. if you have previously made a similar request and there has been little or no change to the data since we complied with the original request).

We will not charge you for dealing with a SAR.

You can ask someone else to request information on your behalf – for example, a friend, relative or solicitor. We must have your authority to respond to a SAR made on your behalf. You can provide such authority by signing a letter which states that you authorise the person concerned to write to us for information about you, and/or receive our reply.

Where you are a data controller and we act for you as a data processor, we will assist you with SARs on the same basis as is set out above.

Putting things right (the right to rectification)

You have a right to obtain the rectification of any inaccurate personal data concerning you that we hold. You also have a right to have any incomplete personal data that we hold about you completed. Should you become aware that any personal data that we hold about you is inaccurate and/or incomplete, please inform us immediately so we can correct and/or complete it.

Deleting your records (the right to erasure)

In certain circumstances you have a right to have the personal data that we hold about you erased. Further information is available on the ICO website. Please inform us immediately and we will consider your request. In certain circumstances we have the right to refuse to comply with a request for erasure. If applicable, we will supply you with the reasons for refusing your request.

The right to restrict processing and the right to object

In certain circumstances you have the right to ‘block’ or suppress the processing of personal data or to object to the processing of that information. Further information is available on the ICO website. Please inform us immediately if you want us to cease to process your information or you object to processing so that we can consider what action, if any, is appropriate.

Obtaining and reusing personal data (the right to data portability)

In certain circumstances you have the right to be provided with the personal data that we hold about you in a machine-readable format, e.g. so that the data can easily be provided to a new professional adviser. Further information is available on the ICO website.

The right to data portability only applies:

• to personal data an individual has provided to a controller;
• where the processing is based on the individual’s consent or for the performance of a contract; and
• when processing is carried out by automated means.

We will respond to any data portability requests made to us without undue delay and within one month. We may extend the period by a further two months where the request is complex or a number of requests are received but if we do, we will inform you within one month of the receipt of the request and explain why the extension is necessary.

Automated decision-making

We do not use or intend to use automated decision-making in relation to your personal data.

Withdrawal of consent

Where you have consented to our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Please inform us immediately if you wish to withdraw your consent.

Please note:

• the withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing;
• if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to continue to provide services to you;
• even if you withdraw your consent, it may remain lawful for us to process your data on another legal basis (e.g. because we have a legal obligation to continue to process your data).

9. Contacting us

We’re Fairsquare LLP, a law firm authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority with SRA no. 626209, and a limited liability partnership incorporated in England and Wales with no. OC501452. We are registered with the ICO with data protection number ZA174083. When we say ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘Fairsquare’, that’s because that’s who we are, and we own and run www.fairsquareLLP.com. Our contact details are:

Fairsquare LLP, 21 Longdown Lane North, Epsom, Surrey KT17 3HY
Email: hello@fairsquareLLP.com

If you have requested details of the information we hold about you and you are not happy with our response, or you think we have not complied with the GDPR or DPA 2018 in some other way, you can make a complaint to us. Please send any complaints to the Data Protection Officer at the contact details above. If you are not happy with our response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the ICO.

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time. If we do so, we will supply you with and/or otherwise make available to you a copy of our amended privacy policy.

Thank you for reading our privacy policy. If you have any questions please get in touch.

Who doesn't love a tasty cookie? Find out more about the ones that we have and what flavours you can choose from in our cookie policy here.

1. Talk with us first

We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care, and we really hope you will be delighted with our services. If you are a client and would like to discuss with us how we can improve our services or are unhappy with any aspect of the work we do for you or our bill, please contact us immediately so that we can do our best to resolve your concern. We suggest you contact the person who is working on your matter to discuss, and we will do our best to resolve any issues.

Procedure for formal complaints

Alternatively or in addition, if you wish to make a formal written complaint, please contact the Senior Partner and/or Compliance Officer for Legal Practice (COLP) by email to hello@fairsquareLLP.com or by letter at our registered office. If so, then please include the reasons for your complaint and any suggested remedy in as much detail as possible. Alternatively if you prefer to explain the above in a meeting, please send us a written request and we will schedule one within seven working days of receipt (or return from absence if the Senior Partner or COLP is absent).

Within three working days of receipt of details of your complaint, we will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of it. We will then investigate. We record and analyse all complaints, so that we can identify what incident(s) led to the complaint, and take any corrective remedial actions without delay. If appropriate, we refer incidents and/or complaints to our regulator and/or insurers. We also identify, and if possible implement, appropriate long-term improvements to our systems, operations and management, to help prevent similar incidents and/or complaints reoccurring.

Although we have eight weeks to consider your complaint, we aim to investigate and respond substantively to any complaint received within 14 working days. If we need more time than this to investigate, then we will tell you within 14 working days, explain why and provide you with our expected timetable for doing so. Making a complaint does not affect how we handle your matter. If we have not resolved it within this time, or you are not satisfied with how we have handled your complaint, then you have a number of rights.

2. Then if you're still unsatisfied, talk with the Legal Ombudsman

If we are unable to resolve your complaint then subject to eligibility, you can have your complaint looked at independently by the Legal Ombudsman. Most individuals and small businesses with a turnover of less than €2 million are eligible. The Legal Ombudsman is an independent body for members of the public who wish to make a complaint about a solicitor who has acted for them. It operates within a regulatory and disciplinary framework set, monitored and enforced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which oversees solicitors. The Legal Ombudsman also works closely with the Law Society, the body that represents solicitors in England and Wales.

Normally, you need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint or within six years of the act or omission about which you are complaining occurring (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it). Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. Again, making a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman will not affect how we handle your matter. See www.legalombudsman.org.uk for further details or write to:

Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ

0300 555 0333 / +44 121 245 3050

enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

www.legalombudsman.org.uk

3. If you are unhappy with our behaviour, contact the SRA

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority via its website.