Legal Notices

 Kingsbridge Law

Kingsbridge Law (Kingsbridge Law Limited) is a private limited company registered in England and Wales with number 12680397 and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) under SRA number 803570.

Its registered office and principal place of business is at 4 Princes Street, London, United Kingdom W1B 2LE.

Its directors, who we call ‘partners’, are either solicitors authorised to practise in England and Wales or barristers called to the Bar in England and Wales. The names of the partners and their respective legal qualifications can be inspected at the registered office or supplied on request.

Any opinion or advice is given subject to our terms of business and any client care engagement letter.

Legal Services Regulation

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is the independent regulatory arm of The Law Society. The Law Society of England and Wales represents solicitors in England and Wales. The Legal Ombudsman is an independent body which adjudicates upon complaints which a law firm’s own complaints handling procedure cannot resolve.

The SRA Standards and Regulations contain the rules of professional conduct which apply to solicitors and this firm. They can be viewed on the website of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (www.sra.org.uk).

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Kingsbridge Law Limited holds professional indemnity insurance in an amount which meets the minimum level of cover required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The policy covers the professional services which the firm provides in the United Kingdom, and it extends to acts or omissions arising out of such services wherever they occur.

Details of the primary layer of compulsory professional indemnity insurance cover which the firm has procured from an SRA approved insurer, including the name of the insurer and the policy number, will be supplied to a client on request.

Regulation of Financial Services

The provision of our legal services may, from time to time, involve regulated activities relating to ‘investments’ within that term’s meaning in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Kingsbridge Law is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, whilst we do not ordinarily provide such services, we are entitled to offer clients a limited range of financial services if they are an incidental part of a legal service we have been engaged to provide because we are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Complaints and redress mechanisms in respect of our financial services are provided through the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman. Information about our own complaints handling procedure appears on this Website.

Becoming a client of Kingsbridge Law

The only way to become a client of Kingsbridge Law is through a mutual agreement in writing made between us and you after we have completed our client take on procedures. Our client set-up procedures include the compliance and client due diligence checks which are required by law and regulation and include conflict, sanction, money laundering and financial crime checks. Please do not provide us with confidential, sensitive or legally privileged information before we have carried out and completed our conflict checks, unless we ask you to do so. You should be aware that if you provide information to us on an unsolicited basis and such information is or may be relevant to the matter of a current client of Kingsbridge Law, we may be required by law, ethics and/or regulation to disclose it to the current client of the firm.

For the avoidance of doubt, no client-lawyer relationship and no contract or other agreement between you and us is or may be created by your access to or use of the Website or any website content. If you provide information to us on an unsolicited basis, it will not be considered confidential, may be disclosed to others, may not receive a response, and does not create a lawyer-client relationship with Kingsbridge Law.

Advice and services are provided to our clients on the basis of the relevant client care engagement letter and our terms of business. By instructing Kingsbridge Law, clients confirm their agreement to the firm’s client care engagement letter and terms of business. No responsibility is assumed, and no liability is accepted for information that is supplied or for services that are rendered to someone who is not a client of the firm (including someone using this Website) unless in writing we have expressly agreed otherwise.

If you are interested in becoming a client of Kingsbridge Law, please contact us so that we can determine whether your matter is one within our expertise and with which we can assist you with.

Client Due Diligence and Anti-Money Laundering Obligations

The United Kingdom’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing legislation and other related rules issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Sector Affinity Group require Kingsbridge Law to take steps to know who our clients are, their business and the reason for their instruction. The rules also require us to conduct due diligence on new clients before we enter into a business relationship with them and on-going monitoring of existing clients.

We are obliged to verify the identity and address of every client of the firm and carry out certain other compliance checks. The checks may include obtaining details of any beneficial owner or controller of a company or trust, and anyone purporting to act on behalf of a client.

We are also required to verify the source of a client’s wealth together with any funds that will be paid to or controlled by the firm. We cannot accept funds unless the source has previously been disclosed to us and verified to our satisfaction. If payment is made to us in breach of this legal requirement, the funds may be frozen until their source and provenance has been established to our satisfaction. We will never knowingly facilitate money laundering or the financing of terrorism.

We are also required to document our compliance procedures and information obtained. In certain circumstances, we may be able to verify the identity of a client through publicly available information including from publicly available electronic data sources. If we are unable to do this, we will ask the client to provide us with the necessary information and documents. We are required by law and regulation to carry out on-going monitoring of all existing clients. As such, we may from time to time request that a client provide us with up-to-date evidence of identity or address or source of wealth/funds or with other information. If we are unable to obtain satisfactory evidence of identity or address, we will not be able to act, or continue acting.

All professional advisers, including lawyers, are under a legal duty to disclose information to the National Crime Agency or other regulatory organisation in certain circumstances under the legislation which governs money laundering, and the financing of terrorism. Where a lawyer knows or suspects that a transaction involves money laundering or the financing of terrorism, the lawyer may be required to report that knowledge or suspicion to the National Crime Agency and other appropriate regulatory organisation. If this happens, we will not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or of the reason for it, for legal reasons. We accept no responsibility or liability for any loss, damage, costs or expenses that you incur by reason of such disclosure.

Client Complaints Resolution

We always aim to ensure that our clients are provided with good quality service applying the highest standards of professionalism and ethics. If a client unhappy with any aspect of the service we have provided, or with an invoice we have delivered, that client is entitled to complain. Information about our complaints handling procedure is available on request or can be accessed by clicking on the ‘Complaints’ link which appears at the foot of this Website’s homepage.

Bribery and Corruption

We operate policies and procedures which comply with United Kingdom laws that are designed to combat bribery, corruption and tax evasion. We always aim to manage our own business and conduct our work for clients in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and to the highest ethical standards.

Our policies and procedures prohibit bribery, corruption or tax evasion. Such bribery or corruption can be either directly or via a third party, the offering, promising or giving of anything of value for an improper purpose or to gain a business advantage. The prohibition extends not only to financial rewards, but also to gifts, donations and services, and to entertainment of an unusual or excessive nature. Dealings with foreign government officials and other politically exposed people are subject to enhanced scrutiny. In addition to bribery and corruption, our policies and procedures prohibit the criminal facilitation of tax evasion.

Our policies and procedures apply to all members of our firm and anyone else who is working for or on behalf of this firm. We expect our suppliers, and the other professional advisers with whom we work from time to time, to have similar policies and procedures in place.

Kingsbridge Law will never knowingly be engaged with, commit or advise or assist a client or a party acting on behalf of a client to commit, an illegal act, including, without limitation, bribery, corruption or tax evasion.

Privacy and Data Protection Notice

Kingsbridge Law is a data controller under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. We process personal data in accordance with our obligations under applicable data protection laws in the United Kingdom.

Our Privacy Notice, which sets out what to expect when we process personal data, is published on this Website and can be accessed by clicking on the ‘Privacy Notice’ link which appears at the foot of the homepage. A copy of the notice can also be supplied on request.

When you provide personal data to us, we shall assume that you have complied with your own obligations under relevant data protection laws.

Electronic Communications

Emails or other communication we send to you and others involved in your matter will not be encrypted unless we inform you otherwise. By using email, fax or other electronic communication to communicate with us you consent to us communicating with you in the same manner. We accept no liability for any inadvertent breach of confidence or privilege, or for any loss or damage, which occurs as a result communication by email or fax or other electronic communication.

Electronic communication may be insecure, intercepted, carry viruses, distort during transmission or arrive late or not at all and remain subject to known or unknown risks. Anyone who communicates with us electronically, or who does not expressly prohibit such communication, will be assumed to accept those risks.

We monitor electronic communications (including email) in order to protect our business and our clients and to ensure that our legal and regulatory obligations and our internal policies and procedures are being complied with.

Bank/Financial Payment Information Interception Fraud

A fraudster may seek to intercept the payment of a bill to our firm, asking that payment be redirected to a different account. Any such email will not have come from us. We provide our payment details in our retainer or client care engagement letter and our invoices. They will not change by email.

If you have received an unexpected request purporting to be from us relating to the movement of funds, please contact the solicitor dealing with your matter. Please make sure you do so using the normal telephone number for that person (and avoid using any number provided in any suspect or unexpected communication).

It is not unusual that fraudsters sometimes seek to intercept legitimate payments and divert them to their own bank account. Often, they will do this by ‘hacking’ a client’s or other individual’s email account (in particular consumer facing email accounts like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo) and then changing the bank account details which appear in an otherwise legitimate email that the account holder sends out or which a genuine person or business has sent to the account holder. This is known as a ‘man in the middle’ fraud.

Kingsbridge Law will never use email to notify you of a change to bank account details which we have already provided to you (in our client care engagement letter or on the back of our invoices). Any email appearing to come from us which seeks to do this will not be genuine. Do not act on it or reply to it, and instead contact us immediately by telephone: do not use email to contact us in case a fraudster has compromised your email account and is monitoring (or tampering with) the emails which you send and receive.

Please note that we will not accept responsibility if you transfer money into a bank account which does not belong to Kingsbridge Law.

Fraud, Scams and Cyber Crimes

You will be aware of the prevalence of fraud including the increase in particular of cyber-crime, worldwide in addition to the bank/financial payment information interception fraud referred to above.

If you receive an email purporting to come from Kingsbridge Law or any of our personnel, or if you are directed to a website which purports to be the Firm’s website, and you have doubts or concerns about the provenance of the email or website, before taking any action please either contact the Firm member you normally deal with or email kb@kingsbridgelaw.com and they will tell you whether the email came from us or whether it is our website.

You should always be alive to the possibility that a fraudster might deliberately misrepresent himself or herself as a member of staff of, or as someone acting on behalf of or working with, Kingsbridge Law for criminal purposes. Such scams normally originate by email.

Fraudsters often use email to perpetrate their scams, so treat unsolicited emails with particular care. Always check and verify the identity of and assess the possible motives of anyone who contacts you on an unsolicited basis.

Remember that a fraudster might be trying to impersonate either someone you know or someone you would normally expect to be on your side (for example, a bank employee, a police officer, or a lawyer, including us). If something sounds too good to be true - a surprise windfall for example - usually it is not true. Never hand over money, or disclose personal or financial information, unless you are sure you know who you are dealing with and their true intentions towards you.

Always be on the look-out for criminal conduct to ensure that you do not become a victim of it. If something looks unusual or suspicious (for example, if it is written in poor English, a business is using consumer email accounts like Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo, or contact details in a communication do not accord with the publicly available contact information for that organisation) either ignore it and delete it or destroy it, or proceed with extreme caution and investigate it thoroughly before acting on it.

Without their knowledge or permission, fraudsters sometimes mention in their communications the involvement of a genuine law firm or a genuine lawyer in an attempt to give legitimacy and credibility to their scam and/or to try and lull their potential victim into a false sense of security.

Never seek to verify the existence or involvement in a transaction of a law firm or lawyer by using contact details contained in an unsolicited communication: always use a public search engine, such as Google, or a reputable online professional directory. Sometimes fraudsters’ communications will also direct the recipient to a bogus website and/or a bogus social media account that intentionally replicates the look and feel of the website or social media account of a genuine business, bank or law firm. Such copies (clones) of websites and social media accounts are created without the knowledge or permission of the genuine business and in an attempt to give legitimacy or respectability to a scam.

We are aware websites can be cloned by persons unknown using web hosting companies located abroad for what we believe are criminal purposes, and also that from time to time scam emails may be in circulation which purport to come from this Firm or personnel of the firm or from a bogus firm or bogus lawyer with a name which is similar to but not identical to the name of this Firm or our personnel. The scam emails often inform the recipient either that lottery winners wish to donate money to them, they might be a beneficiary of the estate of a deceased person, or they might be the beneficiary of a recently discovered life insurance policy. Such emails are invariably fraudulent and should not be replied to or acted upon unless or until their provenance can be established. If you receive an unsolicited and poorly worded email from someone you do not know who is using a free email service and an unusual email address and it contains information or an offer which appears too good to be true, it very likely is not true.

Sometimes other forms of communication are also used to initiate a scam, including text, fax, letter and telephone. Often the initial email or other communication will either: (1) promise the recipient a share of a large sum of money (from a dead person’s estate, an insurance policy, or a lottery win, for example) in return for them paying a modest sum (an ‘administration fee’ of some description), up front (which is commonly referred to as an ‘advance fee’ fraud); or (2) request personal or financial information about the recipient or their bank account allegedly in order to check their account is working correctly or so that non-existent money can be paid in to it (which information they then use to try and access the account by impersonating their victim in an ‘identity theft’ fraud).

SRA Scam Alert Database and Reporting

The website of the Solicitors Regulation Authority contains a ‘Scam Alert’ database which provides members of the public with information about known scams in which the identity of a legitimate law firm or a legitimate lawyer has been used by persons unknown for what are assumed to be criminal purposes (www.sra.org.uk).

Frauds and scams with a United Kingdom element to them can be reported to the UK police / National Fraud Intelligence Bureau using the Action Fraud website (www.actionfraud.police.uk) or make an Action Fraud Report by calling +44 30 0123 2040.