General Terms of Engagement

General Terms of Engagement (GTE, Status: 05/2021, translation)

I Scope
The General Terms of Engagement apply to all present and future engagements related to legal advice and/or representation (mandate) between GILLE HRABAL Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB Patentanwälte (GILLE HRABAL) and the ordering customer (Clients), unless otherwise explicitly agreed in writing (text form) or mandatory by law. Orders are generally issued to GILLE HRABAL, not to an individual partner and/or a person working for GILLE HRABAL. An order can be issued in text form or by telephone.

II Mandate conduction
The client defines the services to be rendered by GILLE HRABAL though the order. The mandate shall be carried out in accordance with the principles of proper professional practice, by persons undergoing continuous advanced training and under consideration of relevant legal developments. GILLE HRABAL is entitled to bring in competent employees and specialized third parties for the conduction of the mandate, provided that they have been sworn to secrecy.

III Remuneration
The wages, expenses and fees (remuneration) shall be determined in accordance with an agreed remuneration agreements or with GILLE HRABAL’s fee schedule. The client has to remunerate the rendered services that were ordered and, if applicable, reimburse any disbursed fees. If a continuation of the processing of an order is refused, GILLE HRABAL is entitled to invoice the services rendered up to that point. wages and fees are subject to periodic review and adjustment.

IV Liability and limitation of liability
The principles of liability are governed by the provisions of the Partnership Act and the GTE. The liability of GILLE HRABAL for cases of slight negligence is limited to 10 million euros (in words: ten million) for each individual mandate. For liabilities of GILLE HRABAL resulting from damages due to incorrect professional practice, only the firm’s assets are liable. The limitation of liability does not apply in the case of culpably caused damages resulting from injury to life, body or health of a person. GILLE HRABAL maintain a liability insurance whose sum insured significantly exceeds the statutory minimum insured sum. If the client desires an individual case insurance exceeding this and an increase of the limitation of liability to the amount of the individual case insurance sum, GILLE HRABAL can get a corresponding individual case liability insurance; the client bears the arising additional costs.
A claim for damages can only be asserted against GILLE HRABAL within a preclusion period of one year after the client has become aware of the damage and the event giving rise to the claim, but at the latest within five years after the event giving rise to the claim, unless the failure to meet the deadline is not the fault of the client. The claim lapses if no action is brought within a period of six months from the written refusal of the compensation and the client has been advised of this consequence. The right to raise the plea of lapse of time remains unaffected.

V Confidentiality
GILLE HRABAL is entitled and obliged to maintain confidentiality. The right and the duty to maintain confidentiality relate to everything that has become known to GILLE HRABAL in the course of the exercise of the mandate and continue to exist after the termination of the mandate. The duty of confidentiality not applies insofar as the professional regulations or other legal provisions permit exceptions or insofar as the enforcement of or defence against claims arising from the client relationship or the defence of the patent attorney in his own matter require disclosure. The employees and all other persons involved in the practice of the profession at GILLE HRABAL are expressly bound to secrecy.

VI Communication and data protection
GILLE HRABAL uses modern forms of communication including email, cloud systems, mobile and VoIP telephony for the purpose of telephonic communication and the storage and exchange of data in compliance with professional and legal provisions on the handling of confidential data, unless the client expressly requests otherwise. Detailed information on data protection and the handling of personal data by GILLE HRABAL is available on the Internet at www.dpat.de/datenschutz.

VII Applicable law, place of performance and jurisdiction
The engagement shall be governed exclusively by German law, to the exclusion of German private international law. The place of performance for all services relating to the engagement and the exclusive local and international place of jurisdiction for all legal disputes arising from the client relationship is Düsseldorf.

VII Miscellaneous
If individual provisions of the GTE are or become invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be thereby affected. The invalid provision shall be replaced by a valid provision that comes as close as possible to the intended objective. Amendments or supplements to the GTE must be made in writing and must be expressly marked as such. This also applies to the abrogation of the written form.