Privacy policy

Privacy policy

The protection of privacy is an important concern for us, because data protection is a matter of trust and your trust is important to us. Therefore, we want to ensure the protection and processing of your data. With this privacy policy we inform you comprehensively about our data processing methods and you decide whether you agree to the processing of your personal data.

This Privacy Policy describes the collection and further processing of personal data by Wicki Partners AG to the extent not covered by other privacy policies or arising from the circumstances or provided for by applicable law. The term personal data includes any information about an identified or identifiable individual.

Please do not hesitate to contact us at any time if you have any questions regarding data protection (item 2).

1 Applicable law

Our offer is primarily aimed at users in Switzerland. We are based in Switzerland and comply with the Swiss Data Protection Act (DSG) as amended. With this privacy policy, we subject ourselves to the provisions of the DSG applicable as of September 1, 2023. You can find the full text of the law here: fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2022/491/en.

We do not currently comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), as we do not profile EU citizens or offer our service to individuals within the meaning of Art. 3(2)(a) GDPR.  

2 Responsible entity

The data processing is carried out by:

Wicki Partners AG ("WPA")

Stockerstrasse 44

8002 Zurich

The responsible person within the meaning of the FADP is the lawyer through whom the mandate is conducted or the person who, alone or together with others, decides on the purpose and means of the processing.

Mail: contact@wickipartners.ch, or the respective individual mail address (can be seen at https://www.wickipartners.ch/wicki-partners).

For requests for information or questions regarding data protection, please contact us using the contact details provided, or directly to the relevant person(s) responsible.

We are not currently required to designate a:n Data Protection Officer:s or Data Protection Advisor:s and accordingly have not designated:n Data Protection Officer:s and Data Protection Advisor:s.

3 Definitions

The definitions of Art. 5 DSG apply, which we reproduce below:

a. Personal data: any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person;
b. Data subject: natural person about whom personal data are processed;
c. Particularly sensitive personal data:

  1. Data on religious, ideological, political or trade union views or activities,

  2. Data about health, privacy, or racial or ethnic affiliation,

  3. genetic data,

  4. biometric data that uniquely identifies a natural person,

  5. Data on administrative and criminal prosecutions or sanctions,

  6. Data on social assistance measures;

d. Processing: any handling of personal data, regardless of the means and procedures used, in particular the acquisition, storage, retention, use, modification, disclosure, archiving, deletion or destruction of data;
e. Disclosure: the transmission or making available of personal data;
f. Profiling: any automated processing of personal data consisting of using such data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects relating to that natural person's job performance, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or change of location;
g. High-risk profiling: profiling that entails a high risk to the personality or fundamental rights of the data subject by leading to the linking of data that allows an assessment of essential aspects of the personality of a natural person;
h. Data security breach: a breach of security that results in the accidental or unlawful loss, deletion, destruction or alteration of personal data, or its disclosure or access by unauthorized persons;
i. Federal body: agency or department of the Confederation or person entrusted with public tasks of the Confederation;
j. Controller: private person or federal body that, alone or together with others, decides on the purpose and means of the processing;
k. Processor: private person or federal body that processes personal data on behalf of the controller.

4 Data protection information

4.1 Purpose of the processing

We process personal data for various processing purposes, depending on whether you are in contact with us as a client, supplier, interested party, employee, service provider, specialist or applicant, or work with us.

The personal data of the users are usually collected directly by WPA when using the website or making use of our service and the client relationship. However, personal data may also be collected indirectly, such as in correspondence with third parties (e.g. counterparties, authorities, courts, etc.) or by further obtaining additional information from generally accessible third-party data sources (e.g. social media, creditworthiness checks, etc.).

In particular, EPA processes personal data for the following purposes:

  • Initiation, conclusion and fulfillment of contractual obligations, in particular in the context of the provision of legal services, but also other contractual partners (e.g. suppliers, service providers);

  • Contact and communicate with clients and third parties, and handle inquiries (e.g., job applications and media inquiries); review and conduct application procedures;

  • Use of services of auxiliary persons (in particular law firms and experts in Switzerland and abroad);

  • Compliance with legal and regulatory obligations, in particular obligations to comply with regulatory obligations applicable to attorneys;

  • Provision of the website offer, also using cookies from other technologies to ensure the functionality of the website and improve our website offer;

  • Ensuring our operations, in particular IT, our websites and other platforms, as well as measures for IT, building and facility security and protection of our employees and other persons and assets entrusted to us;

  • Advertising and marketing, preparation, implementation and follow-up of occasions and events;

  • Preventing and solving crimes and other misconduct;

  • Enforcement and defense of claims, defense of legal claims, litigation, lawsuits, combating abusive behavior;

  • Reasonable corporate governance and development;

  • Company activities according to the Articles of Association, activities that are within the scope of fulfilling our company purpose;

  • Other purposes such as training and educational purposes, administrative purposes.

4.2 Categories of recipients

We indicate the category of recipients to whom personal data may be disclosed depending on the activity in question. These are:

- Web hosting providers, webmasters, IT service providers (where used), social media services (where used), and content management system providers. 

  • Other third parties providing services

  • Public and judicial authorities, auditing agencies, regulatory agencies, law enforcement agencies or governmental agencies (as required or requested by law, regulation, under a code of conduct, or by such authorities or agencies)

  • Counterparties, as well as their legal representatives and other persons involved (guarantors, financiers, respondents, experts, etc.) in actual or potential proceedings.

  • Fiduciaries, service providers for the fulfillment of legal or tax obligations

  • Insurance companies and banks

  • Acquirers or parties interested in acquiring divisions, companies or other parts of EPA.

4.3 Data transmission and dissemination

In particular, in all countries where EPA is represented by group companies, subsidiaries or other branches and agencies, as well as in countries where EPA's service providers process their data, data processing may take place by or as a result of EPA's activities. If data is transferred to countries that do not provide adequate protection, EPA will ensure adequate protection of the disclosed data. 

The following applies to the disclosure of personal data abroad:

  • EU foreign countries: adequate level of data protection.

  • USA: The USA does not currently ensure an adequate level of data protection. The European Commission has determined in a decision that the USA ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data (hereinafter "adequacy decision"). However, the Swiss Federal Council has not yet adopted such a decision, so that there is currently no adequacy decision within the meaning of the FADP (as of 08/2023). To ensure appropriate data protection, we generally base data transfers on guarantees (standard data protection clauses pursuant to Art. 16 (2) (d) FADP) or exceptions (explicit consent of the data subject pursuant to Art. 17 (1) (a) FADP or the disclosure is directly related to the conclusion or performance of a contract between the controller and the data subject pursuant to Art. 17 (1) (b) (1) FADP). We reserve the right to make the transfer on the basis of an exception pursuant to Art. 17 Para. 1 lit. b No. 2 FADP or Art. 17 Para. 1 lit. d-f FADP.

5 Cookies, web analytics service and other web services

5.1 Cookies

WPA uses tracking technologies ("cookies") on the website to learn more about the way a user interacts with the website and to ensure the functionality of the website, to analyze user behavior and to make our website user-friendly for you. Cookies are small text files that are stored either only for the duration of the visit to the website (so-called "session cookies") or longer and are only deleted after a limited period of time, e.g. to recognize returning users.

On the one hand, WPA uses session cookies, which are automatically deleted when the website is closed and which enable the server to establish a stable connection to the user (so that, for example, the contents of a shopping basket are not lost) for as long as the user is surfing the website. On the other hand, permanent cookies are used, which are only deleted after a time specified per website. Permanent cookies are used to remember the user's preferences on the website and remain on the user's desktop or internet-enabled device even after the browser is closed or the device is restarted. WPA uses these cookies to analyse user behaviour and to establish visiting patterns so that website functionality can be improved for all users. 

Cookies do not cause any damage and do not contain viruses. If the user nevertheless does not wish cookies to be set, the browser can be set so that cookies are only created with the user's consent or are generally rejected. However, it should be noted that if the user rejects cookies on the website, some functions on the website may be restricted or unavailable. 

WPA is entitled to install coding in newsletters and other marketing e-mails that can be used to determine whether the recipient has opened an e-mail or downloaded images contained in the e-mail. The recipient may block this application in his/her e-mail programme. In any case, the recipient of the newsletter consents to the use of this technology.

You can get help on cookie management for popular browsers here:

5.2 Web analytics service

The website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc ("Google"). Google Analytics uses "cookies", which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by cookies about the use of the website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. In the event that IP anonymization is activated on this website, however, Google will truncate the user's IP address beforehand within member states of the European Union or in other contracting states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. On behalf of the operator of the website, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating the use of the website by its users, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage to the website operator. The IP address transmitted by the user's browser as part of Google Analytics is not merged with other data from Google. Users may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on their browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. Users may also prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie (including IP address) to Google and the processing of this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link(https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de). 

Google Tag Manager, an offering from Google, allows the marketer to manage website tags through one interface. The Tool Tag Manager itself (which implements the tags) is a cookie-less domain and does not collect any personal data. However, other tags are triggered, which in turn may collect data. Google Tag Manager does not have access to this data.

More information on terms of use and data protection can be found at https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/de.html or at https://www.google.com/intl/de/analytics/privacyoverview.html. 

5.3 Other services

We have integrated Google Fonts to provide you with a better user experience. With Google Fonts, we can use fonts provided by Google (as before). The fonts are retrieved from a Google server when you visit our website. Google records the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the font used.

We use on our website Weglot, a simplified joint stock company located at 7 cité Paradis in Paris (75010), to offer our website services in other languages. You can switch to another language by clicking on the icon on our website. When you call up our website, data may be transmitted to Weglot, including the IP address. You can find the privacy policy here: https://www.weglot.com/de/privacy

If you click on a social media link on the website, you will be redirected to the corresponding page; the data processing is then carried out by the respective provider (e.g. LinkedIn).

We also use Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface, "Google Maps") from Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, or Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043-1351, USA, on our website for the visual display of geographical maps. By using Google Maps, information about the use of our website, including your IP address, is transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. By deactivating JavaSCript in your browser, you can disable Google Maps and prevent data transfers to Google. This will result in you not being able to use the map display.

For more information, please see the Google and Google Maps privacy policies: https://policies.google.com/privacy and https://google.com/help/terms_maps.

6 Social Media Presence

We are active on various social media platforms and provide information about our service. We do not publish any mandate-related or personal data or information on social media platforms without the express consent of our clients. However, we may process data about you if, for example, you are at a cause, event or function of ours and we report on it on social media. The providers of these platforms may analyze their usage and process it for their own marketing purposes as the responsible party.

LinkedIn: https://ch.linkedin.com/company/wicki-partners-attorneys-at-law
Provider: LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Ireland
Privacy Notice: https://de.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy?

7 Automated decision making

We do not use automated decision making.

8 Changes to the privacy policy 

This privacy policy is not part of any contract with you. We reserve the right to change this privacy policy at any time with effect for the future. This may occur, for example, if an appropriate level of data protection for a data transfer abroad is determined or if we expand or restrict our service. The latest version according to the website applies. Please visit the website regularly and inform yourself about the applicable data protection provisions.

9 Have your say! 

Data subjects are entitled to request information from WPA at any time about the data stored about them, about the recipients or categories of recipients to whom their data is disclosed, and about the purpose for which it is stored. They have the right to correct incorrect personal data at any time and to restrict or object to future processing of their data. You also have the right, subject to mandatory legal and regulatory provisions, to have your personal data deleted or transferred. To exercise your rights, you may contact the following: Wicki Partners AG, Stockerstrasse 44, CH-8002 Zurich, contact@wickipartners.ch.

Do not hesitate to contact WPA at any time using the aforementioned contact details. We are of course at your disposal to answer your questions, advise you and assist you in exercising your rights.

Status: September 2023