1. Legal Lion and Melrose Bloem Law Offices is a trade name of Legal Lion Research and Consultancy Ltd. registered by the Chamber of Commerce Curacao under number 103096 and Registered by the Chamber of Commerce Bonaire under number 6844.
2. For the purposes of these General Terms & Conditions Legal Lion Research and Consultancy B.V. shall also be understood to include all persons engaged by Legal Lion Research and Consultancy B.V. in carrying out assignments of clients/commissioning parties.
3. For the purposes of these General Terms & Conditions the concept "services" shall be understood to mean: any and all products supplied and services rendered to a client/commissioning party by Lion Research and Consultancy B.V., as well as any and all other activities performed by Lion Research and Consultancy B.V. for the benefit of a client/ commissioning party of whatever nature, carried out within the framework of an assignment, including activities that are not performed at the explicit request of a client, with the exception of products and services of third parties.
4. All instructions for the provision of (legal) services to any lawyer or person, whether or not as employees of Legal Lion Research and Consultancy B.V., and whether or not this concerns lawyers or other staff members of Legal Lion Research and Consultancy B.V. (in the following referred to as: "Legal Lion B.V."), shall lead exclusively, upon acceptance of these general conditions and in so far as this is necessary by setting aside the provisions of Section 404 and Section 407, subsection 2 of Book 7, Civil Code (BW), to an obligation between the client/ commissioning party and Legal Lion.
5. The obligation ensuing from the instruction to provide (legal) services consists of performing to the best of one's ability, based on the information supplied by the client/ commissioning party and the nature of the instruction, unless the instruction explicitly provides, whether exclusively or not, for an action or a result. If the client/commissioning party wishes limitations regarding the performance of the instruction, it is his duty to point out these limitations in writing.
6. In order to comply with the provisions of the identification provision of services act and/or the disclosure of unusual transactions (in Dutch: Melding Ongebruikelijke Transacties ), the client/commissioning party is obliged to provide proof of identity by means of a valid identity document upon giving the instruction or immediately afterwards at first request.
7. Concerning legal matters and litigation Legal Lion B.V. is free to determine which company lawyer shall carry out the instruction, unless explicitly agreed otherwise. If third parties need to be engaged by Legal Lion B.V. for the performance of the instruction or if these have been engaged in consultation with the client/commissioning party, Legal Lion B.V. is not liable for shortcomings by these third parties and is entitled to accept a possible limitation of liability on the part of that third party without prior consultation with the client/commissioning party. Claims against that third party shall be transferred to the client/commissioning party at his request.
8. The personal liability of any lawyer or person in the employ of Legal Lion B.V. is excluded explicitly. Only Legal Lion B.V. is liable for mistakes made in connection with the performance of the instruction, if any. This liability shall be limited to the amount of the invoices paid out in the matter concerned towards the claim.
9.
The client/commissioning party is obliged to pay a fee for the services and work performed by Legal Lion B.V.
which shall be calculated on the basis of the time spent on the provision of services at the hourly rates
applicable at the time of the provision of services, unless a special rate or fee has been agreed upon
or is applicable for the provision of services. An hourly rate agreed upon with or determined by
Legal Lion B.V. can be unilaterally modified by Legal Lion.
Concerning the services where a monetary value and financial interests are involved, a minimum fee of 9% of
the financial interests will be applicable in real estate matters. Concerning other services where a monetary
value and financial interests are involved, a minimum fee of 20% of the financial interests will be
applicable.
10.
The factor 2 -multiply the hourly rate times 2- will be applied for urgent cases or urgent services outside
office hours between 17:00 and 08:00, during the weekend and during official holidays. The factor 2 will be
applied for visits/services concerning criminal cases at the police station and the prison complex.
The following factors will be applied depending on the financial interests involved in the case:
Monetary value up to
ƒl. 200,000 or for cases without a monetary value
factor 1.0 (multiply the hourly rate times 1)
Monetary value between
ƒl. 200,000 and ƒl. 500,000
factor 1.25 (multiply the hourly rate times 1.25)
Monetary value between
ƒl. 500,000 and ƒl. 1,000,000
factor 1.5 (multiply the hourly rate times 1.5)
Monetary value between
ƒl. 1,000,000 and ƒl. 2,000,000
factor 2.0 (multiply the hourly rate times 2)
Monetary value between
ƒl. 2,000,000 and ƒl. 3,000,000
factor 2.5 (multiply the hourly rate times 2.5)
Monetary value exceeding ƒl. 3,000,000
factor 3.0 ( multiply the hourly rate times 3)
(1 US$ is ƒl. 1.75).
11. In addition to the fee Legal Lion B.V. charge the client/ commissioning party for taxes, disbursements and other direct expenses. Such direct expenses are i.a. court fees, process server expenses, cost of external experts, hotel and travelling expenses, cost of translations, cost of courier services, and cost of long international telephone calls, local mobile telephone calls and fax messages.
12. If the commissioning party and the client are not the same party, the client and the commissioning party shall be jointly and severally liable for what is owed to Legal Lion B.V. regarding the services or work performed for the client, unless one or the other has been discharged explicitly from this joint and several liability. In as far as a fixed price was agreed for rendering certain Services, and the rendering of the Services leads to extra work and performances that cannot be deemed in reason to be included in the fixed price, Legal Lion B.V. shall timely inform the client /commissioning party about the financial consequences of this extra work or performances.
13. Apart from the fee, the client/commissioning party shall owe a fixed amount for office and filing expenses, the normal/usual expenses of telephone, fax, internet, electronic data suppliers, photocopies and postage equal to 8% of every ƒl. 1000,- or part of ƒl. 1000,- invoiced , due in this respect, and he shall also owe all other costs and disbursements incurred by Legal Lion B.V. in the performance of the instruction for the benefit of the client/commissioning party.
14. If applicable, value added tax is also due regarding the fee and the expenses and disbursements owed by the client/ commissioning party.
15. Legal Lion B.V. is entitled at all times to charge the client/commissioning party an advance payment on the fee to be charged to him and/or the costs to be incurred for him or the disbursements to be paid. As long as an advance payment that has been charged to the commissioning party has not been paid, Legal Lion B.V. is entitled to defer its efforts until this payment has taken place in full.
16. Any invoice of Legal Lion B.V. must be paid without suspension or set-off within 14 days of the invoice date or within the date mentioned on the invoice and an advance payment must be paid immediately. After expiry of this term the statutory interest of 1,5 % per month over the due amount shall be payable by the client/commissioning party without having been ordered to do so.
17. Legal and extrajudicial costs to be incurred by Legal Lion B.V. in order to collect its invoices shall be at the expense of the client/commissioning party. Extrajudicial costs shall be charged to the commissioning party at a fixed rate of 20 % of the amount to be collected, without prejudice to the right of Legal Lion B.V. to charge a lower amount regarding these costs.
18. Should the client/commissioning party challenge the correctness of an invoice he has received, this challenge must be in writing with sufficient reasoning and within 7 days of the invoice date. An invoice that has not been challenged within that period shall be considered correct, and acknowledged by the commissioning party to be due. A challenge does not affect the payment obligation of the commissioning party.
19. Both Legal Lion B.V. and the commissioning party are at liberty to terminate an instruction unilaterally without reason. Should this occur, the work undertaken up to the time of termination must be remunerated.
20. After termination of the instruction, all documents submitted by the commissioning party and, at his request, other documents which form part of the file shall be made available, whether in copied form or not, to the client/commissioning party, provided that what is owed by the commissioning party regarding the instruction has been paid. No appeal can be made with regard to an obligation of Legal Lion B.V. to store his file and/or the documents that still form part of it after five years as of the termination of the instruction and/or after the last invoice in this file has been sent.
21. The law applicable in Curacao applies to all instructions. Disputes concerning the performance of the instruction and/or payment of the invoice shall, with exception of the invoking by the parties of assessment by the professional organization of what is owed by the commissioning party after a timely challenge of the invoice, be submitted exclusively to the judgment of the competent Court in Curacao.