Legal & Policies
Terms of Business
Our terms of business are set out below. Please read them carefully, and ask us if there is anything in them which you do not understand. Your continuing instructions will amount to your acceptance of these terms and conditions of business. Unless otherwise agreed, these terms of business apply to any future instructions you give us. We reserve the right to update these terms from time to time and we will notify you if we do so.
The services to be provided
1. Scope of work
1.1. The scope of our work will be as set out in the relevant DBA agreement which is sent to you upon registering with us, or as we may otherwise have agreed with you in writing.
2. Personnel
2.1. The individuals carrying out work on your behalf will include:
- Solicitors (other than partners or consultants, who may also be referred to as a director, senior solicitor, senior associate or associate);
- Accountants;
- Consultants;
- Legal executives;
- Trainee solicitors;
- Paralegals or apprentice paralegals;
- Trainee accountants.
2.2. However, it is the company of CCG Ltd as a whole (“the Company”), rather than any specific individual, which is responsible for providing our services to you.
3. Your responsibilities
3.1. We rely on you to provide us promptly with all the information we need to carry out your instructions and to let us know of any significant changes in your circumstances. You should also provide us with any relevant documents and respond to our requests for further information as fully and quickly as you can.
4. Our fees
4.1. Our charges for professional services consist of our legal, accountancy and other fees, reimbursable expenses (often referred to as “disbursements”) and Value Added Tax (“VAT”).
4.2. Unless otherwise agreed, our charges are based on hourly rates. Our chargeable work will include drafting documents, advising, reporting, calculating your claim, dealing with correspondence and emails, telephone calls, preparing for and attending meetings and preparing notes of those meetings, drafting instructions to Counsel, reading papers, researching the law, attending Court and travelling. The applicable hourly rates will depend on the seniority and specialised knowledge of the individuals concerned and are given in the table below:
| Grade of fee earner | Hourly rate | Hourly rate including VAT at 20% |
|---|---|---|
| Partners and Forensic Accountants with more than 12 years post-qualification experience | £575 | £690 |
| Solicitors, legal executives and accountants with over 8 years post-qualification experience | £500 | £600 |
| Solicitors, legal executives and accountants with between 4 and 8 years post-qualification experience | £350 | £420 |
| Other solicitors, legal executives and accountants with up to 4 years post-qualification experience | £275 | £330 |
| Trainee solicitors, paralegals and other fee earners of equivalent experience and/or responsibilities | £165 | £198 |
These (notional) hourly rates will be adjusted annually with effect from 1 January each year and the revised rates will apply for any work undertaken thereafter.
4.3. Our notional time costs will be calculated for each hour or one sixth of an hour (one unit) engaged on your claim. Routine letters, emails, telephone calls and text messages will be charged as a minimum of one unit where they take one sixth of an hour (i.e. 10 minutes) or less to deal with. If they take longer than one sixth of an hour to deal with, they will be billed in units of 10 minutes rounded upwards to the nearest 10-minute unit.
4.4. Our hourly rates also cover our overheads. However, we may charge separately for certain support services, including photocopying, printing, scanning, faxing, CD creation/copying and data downloading. Unless otherwise agreed, these fees are charged at our standard rates from time to time, details of which are available on request.
4.5. For certain types of work, we may agree a fixed fee at the outset for the legal element of our charges. Where we are not able to agree a fixed fee, we will aim to provide you with the best information possible about likely costs.
4.6. If you wish, you may set an upper limit on our unbilled fees for which you may be liable without further authority. We would not exceed such an agreed limit without first obtaining your consent.
4.7. An estimate, quotation or other indication of fees is not intended to be fixed unless otherwise agreed in writing.
4.8. As well as our legal, accountancy and other charges, our fee will also cover reimbursement of payments made to third parties on your behalf or for your benefit.
4.9. We will add VAT to our charges and to certain disbursements at the applicable rate.
5. Payments on account and retainer payments
5.1. It is our standard practice to seek payments on account for work not covered under our DBA. This money will be paid into our client account, and will not be withdrawn until we deliver an invoice to you, or incur disbursements on your behalf, when it will be applied in settlement.
5.2. We may also seek a retainer at the outset of a matter. This is an amount which is held on client account during the life of a matter and is set against our final invoice or repaid on the conclusion of the matter.
6. Recovery of costs and funding
6.1. At the conclusion of litigation, we will aim to recover a proportion of our costs. If we are working under a DBA, we will at our discretion seek to recover from you any shortfall in these costs.
7. Legal expenses insurance (ATE)
7.1. If we are working under a DBA for you, we will obtain cover for ATE Insurance to fully indemnify against any adverse costs order, and the cost will be shared equally amongst all claimants.
7.2. If we are working on another arrangement, you will be required to pay for any ATE Insurance costs. Some household insurance policies and motor insurance policies provide limited cover for legal expenses. You should check your insurance policy and inform us immediately if you believe that you may be covered. It is also vital that you notify your insurers promptly if you believe that you will be making a claim.
8. Cyber risk
8.1. Cybercrime and email-related fraud are on the increase. To protect you, your money and our business, the following security measures apply to the transfer of funds to or from the Company.
8.2. We will only provide you with our bank account details in a branded PDF document, sent by mail or as an attachment to email correspondence.
8.3. If you receive any communication purporting to come from us which changes those account details, please do not rely on it and let us know by telephone immediately.
8.4. Prior to transferring funds to our account, we ask that you contact us to verify our account details. Please speak to your normal contact(s) here or, failing that, to someone in our Finance team.
8.5. We accept no liability for any loss occasioned by the use of email.
9. Data protection
9.1. During the course of carrying out work on your behalf, and for as long as is necessary at the end of that matter, we will need to keep information about you, some of which may be considered sensitive. The Company has a Data Protection Policy which is updated each year and is available upon request.
10. Client confidentiality
10.1. Our advice to and communication with you is confidential and may be legally privileged in certain circumstances. At any time in the future we may, however, be under a duty to disclose certain facts or information to third parties and to cooperate with any official investigations or enquiries relating wholly or in part to any work we have done for you. We will endeavour, where possible and unless prevented by law, to notify you of any such event and to take all reasonable steps to protect your interests.
10.2. We will be entitled to recover our costs and expenses in complying with such enquiries, including charging for our time at our standard hourly rates.
10.3. From time to time we may instruct third parties to carry out services on our behalf including expert advice or consultancy, auditing services, photocopying, scanning and other similar work on our files. Any such provider we engage will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement.
11. Copyright
11.1. Copyright in all documentation and materials we produce for you in the course of our work remains our property, but you are licensed non-exclusively in perpetuity to use those materials for the purpose for which they were provided to you by us. This licence is conditional on your having paid our fees in full for the work concerned. You may assign this licence to any successor to the relevant part of your business or activities. The licence may be terminated by us if any unauthorised use of our copyright is made.
12. Money laundering
12.1. All law firms must comply with UK anti-money laundering legislation. The Company must establish the identity of all its clients by requesting identity documents. If you are unable or unwilling to provide adequate evidence or information, we will cease to act for you and will accept no responsibility for any delay or loss which may result. The Company has an Anti-Money Laundering Policy and this is available upon request.
12.2. By instructing the Company, you expressly consent to our complying with our statutory obligations in relation to the prevention and detection of money laundering.
13. Client funds
13.1. As part of the services we provide to you it may be necessary to hold money on our client account. You should understand that, in the event of banking failure, Barclays Bank will be liable to you for any money held on your behalf and that we accept no liability for any consequential loss you may incur.
13.2. All client monies are held in strict observance of any rules and regulations pertaining to the holding of clients’ money.
14. Professional indemnity insurance
14.1. The Firm maintains PI Insurance. Details of the insurers and the territorial coverage of the policy are available on request.
14.2. We are required under the terms of our PII Policy to notify our insurers immediately of any instance which appears to be, or could potentially become, a claim against us. If we do so, then your rights to confidentiality are automatically waived and full details of the matter will be disclosed to our insurer.
15. Diversity and inclusion
15.1. The Company is committed to the promotion of diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our business. We aim to treat all prospective and existing employees, clients and third parties equally and without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, maternity or pregnancy, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or beliefs.
16. Complaints and suggestions
16.1. We hope that you will never have reason to complain about our service to you, as it is our aim to provide a high-quality service with which you will be satisfied. However, we do realise that on some occasions your expectations are not met or something goes wrong. If you have a query or concern, or are simply dissatisfied, please bring it to our attention as soon as you can. We will try to resolve the matter fairly and quickly. We will apologise if need be and do our best to offer a practical solution. The Company’s complaints partner is Aidan Loy, who is responsible for this procedure. The Company has a Complaints Policy which is updated each year and is available upon request.
17. Limitation of liability
17.1. The liability of the Firm (including its directors, shareholders, employees, consultants, subcontractors, affiliated entities or agents) for any claim in respect of our services provided to you shall be limited to £10 million. We do not limit or exclude our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for wilful disregard of our professional obligations to you as our client.
17.2. Furthermore, we will not be liable (whether in tort, contract or otherwise) for:
- any direct, indirect or consequential loss of profit, loss of business, loss of chance, loss of revenue or loss of an expected saving or benefit, whether suffered by you or by another person as a result of our acting for you; or
- any direct or indirect or consequential loss as a result of a failure or delay in the performance of your instructions if it is due to any event beyond our reasonable control;
- indirect or consequential loss of any other kind.
17.3. No third party has the right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of the Engagement Document or these terms of business.
18. Termination
18.1. You may end your instructions to us in writing at any time, but we can keep all your papers and documents while there is still money owed to us for fees and/or expenses or disbursements.
18.2. We may decide to stop acting for you only with good reason, for example if you do not pay an interim invoice, comply with a request for payment on account of our costs, or there is a conflict of interests. See also section 13 for other circumstances in which we may cease acting for you. In contentious matters we will, if appropriate, also apply to come off the Court record. We must give reasonable notice that we propose to stop acting for you.
18.3. If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you will pay our charges up to that point, including the fees incurred in relation to us ceasing to act and/or having to notify and liaise with other parties.
19. Variation and inconsistency
19.1. Any variation of these terms of business or the terms of any Engagement Document must be in writing.
19.2. The terms of the Engagement Document override these terms of business to the extent of any inconsistency.
20. Jurisdiction
20.1. Any dispute or legal issue arising from our terms of business will be determined by the law of England and Wales, and considered exclusively by the Courts of England and Wales.