Data privacy notice

Sequent is responsible for ensuring that it uses your personal data in compliance with data protection law and Sequent takes your data privacy seriously. 

The purpose of this Privacy Notice is to explain what personal data Sequent collects and how it uses the personal data. For the purposes of data protection law, Sequent is a data controller in respect of your personal data. “Personal data” is any data that can be used to identify you and which Sequent has in its possession or under its control.

In this Privacy Notice when we refer to “Sequent” or “we”, “our” or “us”, we mean the various Sequent entities.  

1. What personal data do we collect? 

Sequent will collect and process personal data about you that we obtain from you or someone acting on your behalf in the context of our business and fiduciary relationship, by filling in forms, by communicating with Sequent, whether face-to-face, by phone, e-mail, or otherwise. Personal data which we collect and process includes:

  • personal details such as your name, address and other contact details (e.g. e-mail address and phone number), date and place of birth, nationality, and documents evidencing the information (including passport or national ID card details), authentication data (e.g. signature), and family details such as the name of your spouse, partner or children;

  • matrimonial information, including status and matrimonial property regime; 

  • financial information, including information relating to your assets (including fixed assets), the origin of your assets, revenues, earnings, and investments;

  • educational and professional information about you;

  • tax residence and other tax related information and documentation;

  • records of meetings and phone calls between you and Sequent;

  • identifiers which we assign to you, such as your client number; 

  •  when you access our websites, the type of device you use to access the websites, your IP address and your geographic location, the operating system and version, your browser type, the content you view and features you access on our websites, the web pages and the search terms you enter on our websites; and

  • to the extent permitted by law and/or required for the fulfilment of our fiduciary duties, special categories of personal data, such as political affiliation, religious or philosophical beliefs, health information.

In some cases, we collect this information from publicly accessible sources (including press, internet, or beneficial ownership and other registers), third party sources, such as referrals from intermediaries (e.g. professional advisors) or financial crime screening services. 

If relevant, we will also collect information from you about dependants and family members, trust related third parties, such as protectors, advisors, co-trustees, retiring trustees, but also business partners (including other shareholders or beneficial owners). Before providing Sequent with this information, you should provide a copy of this notice to those individuals. 

2. On what legal basis and for which purposes do we process personal data? 

2.1       Legal basis for processing 

Depending on the purpose of the processing activity (see section 2.2), the legal basis of the processing of your personal data will be one of the following: 

(a)   legitimate interest – we may use your personal data for our legitimate interest, without unduly affecting your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms (some examples are given below);

(b)   performance of a contract – we may need to collect and use your personal data to enter into a contract with you or to perform the services which you request, or for carrying out our obligations and duties under such a contract;

(c)   compliance with law and regulation – we may use your personal data to meet our legal and  regulatory responsibilities;

(d)   public Interest – we may use your personal data for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest; and

(e)   consent - we may process personal data based on your consent which we obtain from you from time to time (for instance where required by law), or in the case of special categories of personal data.

2.2       Purposes of processing

Your personal data is processed for specific purposes, and the processing is limited to what is necessary in relation to these purposes. Such purposes are:

(a)   to on-board you as client, this includes the verification of your address and to assess your application for setting up a trust/a structure with Sequent, and to conduct legal and other regulatory compliance checks to comply with anti-money laundering and prevention of fraud regulations; 

(b)   to provide trust arrangement and other fiduciary services to you and ensuring the proper fulfillment of our fiduciary and other duties under the trust arrangement and other fiduciary services;

(c)   to manage the relationship with you and to communicate with you in relation to the trust arrangement and other fiduciary services;

(d)   to meet our ongoing compliance and regulatory obligations, such as anti-money laundering, tax laws, automatic exchange of information, including disclosures to financial service/anti-money laundering regulators, tax authorities, and other regulatory and governmental bodies; 

(e)   for Sequent’s prudential and operational management (including risk management, audit etc.); and

(f)  any other purposes which we notify to you from time to time.

2.3.    Am I obliged to provide personal data?

In the context of our business relationship, you must provide all personal data that is required for accepting and carrying out trust arrangement and other fiduciary services or that we are legally obliged to collect. Without this personal data, we are not in a position to enter into or continue a trust arrangement and other fiduciary or business relationship with you.

3. To whom are personal data disclosed? 

3.1       Sequent

We may share personal data with other Sequent entities which have a role in the provision of trust arrangement and other fiduciary services (e.g. as trustee or administrator) but also for the fulfillment of regulatory and legal obligations.  

3.2       Third parties 

Sequent may disclose personal data to third parties, including as follows: 

  • to third parties relevant to the provision of trust and other fiduciary services. This may include for example registered agents, banks, professional advisors, or accountants;

  • to service providers, third party agents or contractors such as IT, communication services, fraud prevention, and others. When we do share personal data with such service providers, we ensure that they meet our data security standards;

  • to the extent required by law, regulation or court order for example if Sequent is under a duty to disclose personal data to public authorities, regulators or governmental bodies in order to comply with any legal or regulatory obligation;

  • in order to establish, exercise or defend Sequent’s legal rights, for example if Sequent needs to obtain external legal advice or provide personal data in connection with judicial proceedings; and

  • to the prospective buyer, for due diligence purposes, if Sequent  and/or its shareholders  restructure or sell any of its business or assets. 

4.  International transfers of personal data

The recipients referred to in section 3 above may be located outside Switzerland, the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or in a country not approved by European Commission. Sequent requires such recipients to comply with appropriate measures designed to protect personal data. This may be achieved by a binding legal agreement based on “model contractual clauses” approved by the European Commission, obliging the recipients to protect the personal data that they receive, or where the recipient is located in the US, it might be a certified member of the EU-US or Swiss-US Privacy Shield scheme, or any other appropriate measure.  

You can obtain further details of the specific safeguards applied to the international transfer of your personal data by contacting Sequent in accordance with the “Contacting Sequent” section below. 

 

5. For how long will my data be stored?

How long Sequent will hold personal data will vary. The retention period will be determined by various criteria including:

·       the purpose for which Sequent  has collected and is using it – Sequent will need to keep the data for as long as is necessary for that purpose; and

·      compliance with legal, regulatory or internal policy requirements – laws or regulations may set a minimum period for which Sequent has to retain personal data. 

6.  What rights in relation to personal data do I have?

You have a number of legal rights in relation to the personal data which Sequent holds about you. These rights include:

  • the right to obtain information regarding the processing of your personal data and access to the personal data which Sequent holds about you;

  • the right to request that Sequent rectify your personal data if it is inaccurate or incomplete; 

  • the right to request that Sequent erase your personal data in certain circumstances. Please note that there may be circumstances where you ask Sequent to erase your personal data but Sequent is legally entitled to retain it;

  • the right to object to, and the right to request that Sequent restrict its processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. Again, there may be circumstances where you object to, or ask Sequent to restrict its processing of your personal data but Sequent is legally entitled to continue processing your personal data and/or to refuse your request;

  • in some circumstances, the right to receive some personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or request that Sequent such data to a third party where this is technically feasible. Please note that this right only applies to personal data which you have provided to Sequent;

  • the right to withdraw your consent, although in certain circumstances it may be lawful for Sequent to continue processing your data where Sequent has another legitimate reason (other than consent) for doing so. Please note that the withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal; and

  • the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you think that any of your rights have been infringed by Sequent.

You can exercise the rights set out above by contacting Sequent using the details set out in the “Contacting Sequent” section below.  

7. Contacting Sequent

If you would like further information about Sequent’s processing of your personal data or the exercise of any of the rights referred to above, please address questions, comments and requests to:

data.protection@sequent.limited