Privacy policies

Website privacy notice

We at Stephenson Harwood LLP ("SH", "we", "us", "our") operate our website www.offshoreenergylaw.com (the "Site"). "SH Group" means Stephenson Harwood LLP and other partnerships, corporations and undertakings which are authorised to carry the name "Stephenson Harwood"; and a "member of the SH Group" has a corresponding meaning.

It is important to us that we protect the privacy of personal information and for you to know what type of information we collect and how we treat information we may receive from you. We detail below how we collect personal information about you from your use of the Site.

This Privacy Notice forms part of our Website Terms and Conditions and the definitions in the Website Terms and Conditions also apply to this Privacy Notice.

The types of information we collect from you

We may collect and store the following types of personal information about you when you use the Site or by corresponding with us (for example, by email). This includes information you provide when registering to use the Site or sharing any data via our social media functions. The information given to us may include:

• your title, name, your age, date of birth, your address, telephone number and your email address; 
• other personal information including special categories of personal data (e.g. racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical belief, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, health, sex life or sexual orientation);
• information in connection with communications you send us, for example to report a problem, recruitment queries and legal enquiries; and 
• details of the functions and services you use on the Site.

Automated collection of information

Each time you use the Site, we may automatically collect the following types of information by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies:

• Technical information: This means information about the type of internet browser and operating system you use, your internet protocol (IP) address, your browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you are using. We use this information to help provide a good user experience on the Site.
• Log and usage information: This means information about how you use our Site, your visits to the Site and traffic data. We use this information to help us understand how users use the Site and to improve user experience.
• Marketing and Communications information: We track when you receive and read marketing communications from us in order to improve our marketing services, provide you with more relevant information and improve the quality of our marketing materials.
• Profile information: This is information collected progressively when you visit our Site, including your referral website, pages you visit, actions you take, patterns of page visits and information from forms you may fill in on the Site.
• Third party information: We may receive certain technical or usage information about you from third party analytics providers such as Google.

Legal basis for processing

Our processing of your personal information is necessary: (i) for the performance of contracts to which you will be a party and in order to take steps at your request prior to you entering into those contracts; and (ii) for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by us.

Legitimate interests
Our processing of your personal data is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by us, namely: (i) collecting user information to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient and customised experience; (ii) to make sure you receive updated information on SH's business activities; (iii) to provide the services you have requested and to provide them efficiently; (iv) to ensure that the content on the Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device; (v) to allow you to participate in any features on the Site when you choose to do so; and (vi) for our own marketing and research.

Purposes of processing and use of your personal information

We may use your personal information specifically to:

• subscribe you to our newsletters or updates; 
• consider your application where you have applied for a position with us; and 
• tell you about our services and provide you with targeted marketing in relation to our services.

If you are an existing user of our services, we may only contact you with information about services similar to those we provide. If you are a new user of our services, we may contact you with information about our services more generally.

Disclosure of personal information

Except as expressly set out in this Privacy Notice we do not share, sell, or lease personal information about you to any third parties for their marketing use.

We may disclose personal information to provide our services, respond to legal requirements, enforce our policies and protect our rights and property. The personal information you provide to us may also be shared with the SH Group if this is necessary to provide you with our services, respond to your inquiries or for any other related purposes.

We may also provide third party service providers access to information where they support or provide services to us. We will ensure that if we share information with, or provide access to, third party service providers, any such disclosure or access is at all times in compliance with data protection legislation.

We may also share your personal information with:

• the SH Group;
• third parties who support our information technology or handle mailings or events on our behalf;
• law enforcement agencies, other governmental agencies or third parties if we are required by law to do so, or in other limited circumstances (for example if required by a court order or regulatory authority, or if we believe that such action is necessary to prevent fraud or cyber-crime or to protect the Site, our technology assets or the rights, property or personal safety of any person); and
• other business entities should we plan to merge with or be acquired by that business entity, or if we undergo a re-organisation with that entity.

Your rights

You have a number of rights concerning the way that we use your information. At any time, you have the right to:

• request access to or a copy of any personal data we hold about you;
• request the rectification of your personal data, if you consider that it is inaccurate;
• request the erasure of your personal data, if you consider that we do not have the right to hold it;
• object to your personal data being processed for a particular purpose or to request that we stop using your information;
• request not to be subject to a decision based on automated processing and to have safeguards put in place if you are being profiled based on your personal data;
• ask us to transfer a copy of your personal data to you or to another service provider or third party where technically feasible; and
• ask us to stop or start sending you marketing messages at any time by using the below contact details.

Any request for access to or a copy of your personal data must be in writing and we will endeavour to respond within a reasonable period and in any event within one month in compliance with applicable data protection legislation.

Security and storage of your information

Although we maintain physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to protect your personal information from unauthorised or inappropriate access, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to us or provided though the Site.

Personal information that you submit may be sent to, and stored on, secure servers owned by or operated for us. If we collect personal information about you through the use of the Site we will only retain that information for as long as is reasonably necessary to fulfil the activity requested, or as may be required by law.

Your personal information may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the UK or European Economic Area ("EEA") and may also be processed by staff operating outside the UK or EEA who work for us, the SH Group, or for one of our service providers.

When we, or our permitted third parties, transfer your information outside the UK or EEA, we or they will impose contractual obligations on the recipients of that data to protect your information to the standard required in the European Economic Area. We or they may also require the recipient to subscribe to international frameworks intended to enable secure data sharing. In the case of transfers by us, we may also transfer your information where: (i) the transfer is to a country deemed by the UK government or European Commission to provide adequate protection of your information; (ii) where you have consented to the transfer; or (iii) where such transfer is otherwise permissible under Data Protection Legislation (for example where we are required to provide such information by law).

Certain features of the Site will allow for social networking. You should ensure when using these features that you do not submit any personal data that you do not want to be sent, collected or used by other users, such as profile details or email address.

Opt-Out

You also have the option of "unsubscribing" from our mailing list for newsletters, alerts and updates at any time, thereby disabling any further such email communication from being sent to you. To unsubscribe just send an email to [email protected] with the word 'remove' in the subject line and the email address that you wish to be removed within the email. In addition, each electronic mailing we send you will contain details of how you can unsubscribe.

Please note that it may take up to one month to action your request.

Automated processing

We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling in relation to your personal information.

Cookies

Our use of cookies
SH would like to set and access cookies and similar technology (referred to here as "cookies") on your device to obtain information about how you access and use our www.offshoreenergylaw.com (Site), to enhance your experience on the Site and to connect you to social media. This helps us to provide you with a good experience and allows us to improve the Site. Unless you have adjusted your browser settings so that it will refuse cookies, the Site will set strictly necessary cookies when you load and navigate it. We will not set any cookies through this Site, other than those that are necessary to make the Site work, without your consent.

You can give consent to cookies, or withdraw any consent you have previously given, through our cookies tool or your browser settings - for more detail, please see Refusing or restricting cookies below. Please note that, in order to refuse cookies that are set by third parties, you must use your browser settings or visit the third party site and follow the instructions in their cookie notice.

What are cookies? 

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a site. Cookies are then sent back to the originating site during your browsing session or on each subsequent visit, or to another site that recognises that cookie. The cookies we set do lots of different jobs, such as to help us to improve the Site and deliver a better and more personalised service, remember your preferences, and generally improve the user experience. You can find more information about cookies at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

The cookies we use on this Site can be categorised in accordance with the categories found in the ICC UK cookie guide, as set out below:

• Strictly necessary cookies – enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. They also make our Site easier to use by accelerating its display through load balancing. You can disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the Site functions. You cannot disable these using our cookies tool.
  
  We use the following strictly necessary cookies:
   

  Name	Source	Purpose	Expiry
  CookieControl	Civic	This cookie is set in order to remember the user's preferences in regards to cookies.	Persistent - expires after 90 days.

• Performance cookies – these cookies are set to provide enhanced functionality and make our Site easier to use, by remembering your preferences, including the preferences you have indicated on our cookies tool.
  
  We use the following performance cookies:
   

  Name	Source	Purpose	Expiry
  _gid	Google Analytics	This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. It stores and updates a unique value for each page visited.	Persistent - expires after 24 hours.
  _ga	Google Analytics	This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports.	Persistent - expires after 2 years.
  _gat	Google Analytics	This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics, according to documentation it is used to throttle the request rate - limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites.	Persistent - expires after 1 minute.

Cookies can also be categorised in accordance with how long they are saved on your device: "session cookies" are short-term cookies that are only saved on the device's memory for the duration of a user's visit to the Site, whereas "persistent cookies" remain saved in the device's memory for a set period of time, even after the browser session has ended. The expiry period for each cookie is set out above.

Refusing or restricting cookies

You may refuse to accept, or withdraw your previous consent to, cookies in two ways:

1. Our cookies tool, which you can access at the bottom left hand corner of our Site. Our cookies tool will record when you have consented to non-essential cookies. Essential cookies cannot be disabled using the tool because they are necessary to make the Site function. You may change your mind about the cookies you have selected through our cookies tool by updating your choices in our tool at any time. Please be aware that our cookies tool cannot be used to block cookies on third party websites linked to from our Site. In order to remove these cookies you will need to visit the relevant third party site and follow the instructions in their cookie notices. Alternatively, follow the instructions below to turn off these cookies using your browser settings. 
    
2. Your browser settings may allow you to refuse the setting of certain cookies. The "Help" or "Internet Settings" functions within your browser should tell you how. For information on how to manage cookies on popular browsers please see the following links:
   • Google Chrome
   • Microsoft Edge
   • Mozilla Firefox
   • Microsoft Internet Explorer
   • Opera
   • Apple Safari

Alternatively, you may wish to visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/ which contains detailed information on cookies and how to delete, restrict or block them on a wide variety of browsers. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, you may be able to use the tool provided by Google available at: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Please be aware that if you select to refuse or restrict cookies, the full functionality of the Site may no longer be available.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact us at [email protected], on +44 20 7329 4422 or alternatively at 1 Finsbury Circus, London EC2M 7SH.

If you have any concerns about our use of your information, you also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office, which regulates and supervises the use of personal data in the UK, via their helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this Notice

We may amend this Privacy Notice at any time by posting the amended terms on the Site. All amended terms will automatically take effect immediately on posting. Please check this Privacy Notice periodically to inform yourself of any changes. If you do not accept the changes made to this Privacy Notice you should immediately stop using the Site.

Version: September 2021