Terms and Conditions (UK Advisory)
It is important that you read this agreement carefully as it sets out the
terms on which Davy will act and our aims in acting for you. By signing this
form you are agreeing to and entering into a contract whereby J&E Davy (and
associated companies) will provide share dealing, advice, safe custody, and
related services. You and we are bound by these terms if we accept your application
to open an account with us. Please seek advice or contact your Davy Portfolio
Manager with any queries on this agreement.
J&E Davy, trading as Davy, is a member of the Irish Stock Exchange and the London
Stock Exchange. Davy is authorised by the Irish Financial Regulator under the
Stock Exchange Act 1995, and regulated by the Financial Services Authority for
the conduct of investment business in the UK. Registered in Ireland no. 106680.
VAT registration number 4800408E. FSA register no. 211884.
1. Services
We will provide investment advice and dealing services (having regard to your investment objectives as detailed in your Investment Profile form and any amendments you make to these subsequently) (together with related research, valuation, safe custody, cash deposit facilities) in the following:-
- Shares or stock in UK or foreign companies.
- Debenture stock, loan stock, bonds, notes, certificates of deposit, commercial paper or other debt instruments, including government, public agency, municipal and corporate issues.
- Warrants* to subscribe for investments at (i) or (ii) above.
- Depository receipts or shares, or other types of instrument relating to investments at (i), (ii) or (iii) above.
- Investment trusts, unit trusts, mutual funds and similar collective investment schemes.
- Options* on investments at (i), (ii) or (iii) above, including options on an option.
- Other derivative investments* including contracts for differences and exchange traded options.
- Any other investment instruments agreed between us.
*subject to your reading and accepting a statement of the risks associated with these instruments.
We will also manage your temporary cash surpluses, which may arise while you, or we are waiting to make further investments and your fixed term deposits, if you have any.
2. Advisory Services
We propose to classify you as a Private Customer. We will manage your account to try to meet your investment aims set out in the relevant section of the Investment Profile, or about which you have otherwise notified us. If you have told us about your investment aims other than in writing, we will write and confirm these to you. If the Investment Profile does not adequately reflect your aims, please set them out in a separate letter to us. We will continue to apply these investment aims until you write and tell us otherwise.
We will advise you in accordance with your aims and in a way that we consider is suitable for you. As a result we may contact you from time to time to bring investment opportunities to your attention. If there are any limits or restrictions that you want to place on your investments you must write and tell us.
You may decide to give orders to buy or sell securities from time to time without seeking our advice. We will deal with these orders on an execution-only basis. If you place an execution-only order with us, please be aware that we will not advise you on the merits of the transaction nor will we assess the suitability of the investment for you. You will make and be responsible for all such investment decisions.
3. Commission and Charges
We will charge our fees and commission in line with our scale of charges in effect at the time the charges are incurred; this document forms part of these Terms. We will give you a copy of the current scale of charges on request; these are also available from our website, www.davy.ie. Commission on transactions is payable at the time the transaction is settled. Commission on sales will be deducted from gross sales proceeds; for purchases, commission is added to the purchase consideration. In some cases, with your agreement, we may vary our standard charges. In addition to our charges you will also pay any applicable value added tax, Government stamp duty and any charges levied by exchanges, clearing houses or other authorised bodies that relate to your dealings. You may also have to pay stamp duty at the relevant rate on any purchase transactions and will have to pay all other transaction charges shown on the contract note.
If you are carrying out your business using an intermediary, or if an intermediary introduced you to Davy, we may share commission earned on your transactions. We can give you details of any commission we share with the intermediary on request. We may from time to time receive a commission from the issuer of new securities, or from some other party in connection with an investment that you enter. Where practicable, we will advise you of this before you enter the transaction.
As well as charges payable to Davy, you may incur taxes or duties, for example, Capital Gains Tax, that you must settle with the relevant revenue or taxation authority.
4. Risk Notices
Most forms of investment involve some risk. You should remember that the value of investments may fall as well as rise, due to fluctuations in the financial markets outside the firm's control. Past performance is no indicator of future performance.
Non-readily realisable investments
We may tell you about non-readily realisable investments. These are investments in which the market is limited or could become so. They can be difficult to deal in and it can be difficult to assess a proper market price for them. Please write and tell us if you do not want us to tell you about these investments.
Off exchange transactions
We may tell you about transactions which are not regulated by the rules of any stock exchange or investment exchange. Please write and tell us if you do not want us to tell you about these sorts of transactions.
Stabilisation
This statement complies with the rules of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and those of the Irish Stock Exchange and the Financial Regulator. Davy or its representatives may, from time to time, recommend transactions in securities to you, or carry out such transactions on your behalf, where the price may have been influenced by measures taken to stabilise it. You should read the explanation below carefully. This is designed to help you judge whether you wish your funds to be invested at all in such securities and, if you do, whether you wish (1) to be consulted before Davy carries out any such transaction on your behalf; or (2) to authorise Davy to carry out any such transaction on your behalf without first having to consult you.
What is stabilisation?
Stabilisation enables the market price of a security to be maintained artificially during the period when a new issue of securities is sold to the public. Stabilisation may affect not only the price of the new issue but also the price of other securities relating to it. Regulators allow stabilisation in order to help counter the fact that, when a new issue comes onto the market for the first time, the price can sometimes drop for a time before buyers are found. Stabilisation is being carried out by a 'stabilisation manager' (normally the firm chiefly responsible for bringing a new issue to market). As long as the stabilising manager follows a strict set of rules, he is entitled to buy back securities that were previously sold to investors or allotted to institutions which have decided not to keep them. The effect of this may be to keep the price at a higher level than it would otherwise be during the period of stabilisation.
The Stabilisation Rules:
- limit the period when a stabilising manager may stabilise a new issue;
- fix the price at which he may stabilise (in the case of shares and warrants but not bonds); and
- require him to disclose that he may be stabilising but not that he is actually doing so.
The fact that a new issue or a related security is being stabilised should not be taken as any indication of the level of interest from investors, nor of the price at which they are prepared to buy the securities.
Penny shares
Investing in smaller companies can involve greater risk: the spread between the buying and selling prices is likely to be larger than for other shares, and if you need to sell shortly after buying, you may realise much less for your shares than you paid. The price of penny shares may change quickly, it may go down as well as up and it may be more difficult to sell such shares. You should not invest amounts you cannot afford to lose.
Unregulated collective investment schemes
We may advise you on investing in unregulated collective investment schemes. As these investments do not carry the protection provided by the UK regulatory system, they may involve additional risk.
We are required to take reasonable steps to obtain from you sufficient investment-related information to enable us to give you suitable advice. This includes details of your resources, objectives, attitude to risk and investment preferences. Should this information change, you have a responsibility to inform us so we can ensure that your portfolio remains suitable at all times. If you do not do so, this may affect your right to suitable advice, and a suitable portfolio.
5. Anti-Money Laundering
We are required under anti-money laundering legislation to record evidence that we have undertaken identity checks in respect of all new clients. In this regard, you will be required to provide us with specific identification to open an account.
6. Instructions
When you place an order with us, you should quote your account number. We will accept orders to buy investment instruments either by telephone or by letter, and orders to sell by telephone. Any instructions that you place must be for a transaction to be carried out immediately at the best price available or, alternatively, you may put a price limit on your order.
Your limit orders will be valid until the close of business on the Friday of the week following that in which you place them. We will then cancel them automatically unless you ask us to renew them in time. However, you may decide that you want your order to expire before this time. You can do this by asking your Portfolio Manager when you are placing your order. If you choose to do this, your order will expire on that specified date if it has not been filled by then. In the event that part of your order has been filled before you instruct us to cancel your order, only the undealt part may be cancelled.
We may require that you place price limits on orders for certain types of securities. We will tell you when you are placing your order whether you need to place a price limit on your order. We will provide you with advice on the price limit.
If you change a limit, we will put your revised order behind other existing instructions at that same limit. It may not be possible for us to cancel or amend an existing order. In the event that part of your order has been filled before you instruct us to change a price limit, the changed limit will only apply to the undealt part of your order.
You can only buy stock if there are sellers in the market and sell if there are buyers. For this reason there can be significant delays before we can complete some of your instructions. We may need to add your order to those of other clients or to our own orders if we need to do this to complete your order and if it is reasonably unlikely that it will disadvantage any of our clients.
We will be entitled to rely on any instructions, whether verbal or written, that we believe in good faith to be from you or from your agents.
7. Settlement
All bargains will be settled in accordance with market practice.
We will send a contract note to you by post in respect of every transaction, including transactions arising from your failure to pay or deliver as agreed, either on the day that it is traded or before the end of the following business day. The contract note will give details of any commission, transaction taxes and charges you will have to pay. We will assume that you have received the contract note and that the details on it are correct unless you contact us within 48 hours of the date of issue of the contract note. However, we reserve our right to correct errors at any time.
If there is a mistake on the contract note or if information has been omitted, you will not be able to enforce the trade as confirmed to you and will be obliged to settle the trade as dealt by us.
We must receive any amounts you owe us for purchases no later than the date shown on the contract note issued to you. However, we can ask you to pay before we accept or act on your purchase orders. You may pay any amount you owe to us by cheque, from funds placed on deposit on your behalf by Davy or, in certain circumstances, by direct debit from your bank account. If you pay us by direct debit, your account will be debited on the settlement date set out on your contract or fee note.
We may pay any amount we owe to you by cheque or by electronic transfer or funds can be placed on deposit on your behalf. We can only facilitate one standing payment instruction.
8. Valuations
We will give you a Portfolio Valuation of your investments every three or six months as agreed. Your Portfolio Valuation will include investments based on trade date, this means it may include investments which have not settled. We will value investments as follows:
- We value exchange-traded equities, depository receipts, investment trusts and warrants using the prices provided to us by a third party data vendor. The prices we receive generally comprise the mid-price (derived from the closing bid and ask/offer prices), the closing bid or the last traded price for that instrument on the relevant stock exchange.
- We price the most widely held fixed interest securities, such as government and corporate bonds, inclusive of accrued interest. However, we price the less widely held and illiquid fixed interest securities exclusive of accrued interest. Your Portfolio Manager will be able to provide you with details of any accrued interest on request.
- We show investments in unit funds or unquoted investment funds at the prices provided to us by the relevant fund administrator for the purposes of the Portfolio Valuation Report. These may comprise mid-prices, bid prices, last dealt prices or latest net asset values per unit for dates as close as possible to the date of the Portfolio Valuation Report.
- We value direct investments in property or collective investments whose sole asset is property at cost or the most recent market value assessed by an independent qualified property professional.
- We value investments in unquoted companies using information reasonably available to us in the public domain, which may include the price of a recent transaction in the security where it is known to us.
- Where your valuation shows a Forecast Annual Income, this figure, provided to us by a third party, is a projection of the amount, in sterling, that will be earned in the year by way of dividends on equities or coupon payments for bonds. This figure may not always correspond with the actual income from the dividends and bond coupons; actual income received is set out on the Income Statement section of your Valuation.
- The value of certain investments depends on the performance of an index or 'basket' of selected stocks; this will be set out in the factsheet or equivalent that we make available at the time you invest. With these investments, the amount of your capital that you receive back at maturity will vary depending on these factors. At any time, you may ask your Davy Portfolio Manager for an indication of the projected value of your investment at maturity, based on the current value of the relevant index or basket. Your Portfolio Manager can also advise you of the level the relevant index or basket must reach for your capital to be at risk at maturity.
We obtain many of the prices that we use in preparing your Portfolio Valuation Report from external data providers or fund administrators on whom we are reliant for the accuracy of the information. We cannot be responsible for errors contained in information we source externally. If you decide to sell your holdings, you may receive more or less than the value shown. You may incur early encashment fees or market value adjustments on the sale of tracker or unitised investments.
You may have asked us to show securities that you hold in your own name on your Portfolio Valuation Report. If so, by including them as an accommodation for you, Davy is not representing that they are due to you or that Davy holds them as part of its nominee service or in safe custody for you. We will continue to include these securities in your Portfolio Valuation Report unless you advise Davy to increase, reduce or delete them on foot of any purchase, sale or corporate action.
Where you purchased securities through Davy, the book cost for any security will represent the purchase price paid to Davy. Where you have bought a particular security in a series of transactions, we will calculate an average price and use it as the book cost. Where you have purchased securities elsewhere and subsequently transferred them to Davy, we are reliant on you to provide us with an accurate amount for the book cost. Otherwise we will use a price as at the date we recorded the receipt of the securities from you.
The valuation report will contain the description, number and value of each type of investment instrument you hold, together with a list of the cash balances on any of your accounts. We will also include a list of all of the transactions for the period and of all transfers of money into and out of your portfolio of investments. This includes dividends, interest and fees for the period since the last valuation.
9. Who holds your investments?
UK and Irish securities
Your securities will be registered in the name of a nominee company of the Davy Group, which must operate in accordance with the requirements of the Financial Regulator.
Other securities
If you deal in securities that do not participate in the UK or Irish settlement system, we will register those securities with an eligible custodian that is not part of the Davy Group. The custodian will hold your securities separately from those of the firm or of any company to which we are affiliated. In the event of an unreconcilable shortfall after the failure of a custodian, clients may share in that shortfall in proportion to their original share of the assets in the pool.
We are careful in our choice of custodian; however, we do not accept any liability for any action taken by or for the default of that custodian.
Our Nominee Service
We will keep appropriate records to ensure that we can easily identify the quantity of securities we hold for you. We will keep these records in accordance with best market practice. We will confirm your holdings in writing to you at least twice each calendar year.
If you have sent us a valid filled-in Dividend Withholding Tax (DWT) exemption form, we will make your DWT status known to those Irish companies in which you hold shares. When we do this, you will receive your dividends before deductions.
We will take reasonable steps to contact you before any rights issue, calls, conversion, subscription or redemption rights or take-overs or other offers arising from capital reorganisations (corporate events) attaching to your investments, unless it is impractical to do so.
If you instruct us in relation to corporate events before the deadline specified by us, we will take reasonable steps to act on your instructions. If we cannot contact you to get your instructions for these events or if we do not hear from you, we will take such action, or refrain from taking any action, as we think fit, including arranging for the disposal of any rights. When we do, we may take account of our general view of the event. In so acting we will be deemed to be acting on your instructions and with your authority and consent.
We will be responsible for claiming and receiving dividends, interest payments and other income payments accruing to your investments. However in the event of a scrip dividend being offered, we will elect to take the cash alternative unless you specifically instruct us to take the share alternative. We will not take up scrip dividends in securities other than UK and Irish shares.
We will provide you with sufficient information on income and dividends accruing to your account to enable you to file returns with HM Revenue & Customs. We will not advise you of any liability to Capital Gains Tax; you must assess this and make any required returns.
We will not notify you of any Annual General Meetings or Extraordinary General Meetings applicable to your investments, nor will we exercise or arrange for the exercise of any voting rights attaching to your investments unless you request us to do so in writing. In this case we will use reasonable endeavours to make appropriate arrangements provided you have given us sufficient time to do so.
Money
We treat money that we hold in accounts with credit institutions for you in accordance with the requirements of the Financial Regulator. We will only pay interest on money we have invested in deposit accounts opened for you. We may move your money between credit institutions without advance notice to or requiring consent from you. If you instruct us in writing to place funds on deposit with a specific credit institution, subject to that credit institution meeting the regulatory criteria outlined below, we will endeavour to do so. If we are in a position to act on your instruction we accept no liability in the event of default by the credit institution chosen by you.
The credit institutions with whom we currently hold client money have confirmed to us in writing that money they hold for clients of Davy is not this firm's money but has been placed with them by Davy as trustee for our clients; cannot be subject to a claim in respect of any money owed by us or combined with any account held by us; and is held in accordance with the requirements of S.52 of the Stock Exchange Act, 1995. We are careful in our choice of credit institutions, however, we do not accept any liability for any action taken by or for the default of any eligible credit institution. On request, we will supply details of credit institutions with which we may hold client money.
We will keep appropriate records to make sure that we can easily identify the amount of money we are holding for you. We will keep these records in accordance with regulatory requirements. The rate of interest paid to you by the credit institution with which we place your funds may be adjusted without notice to you to reflect the costs incurred by us in the provision of our deposit service.
Client assets held outside Ireland or the United Kingdom
We may hold client money and securities ("assets") outside Ireland or the United Kingdom. Where the firm holds client assets outside Ireland or the United Kingdom, the title of the account in which the assets are held distinguishes the account from any account containing assets of the firm. The credit institutions or eligible custodians with which we may hold assets outside Ireland have confirmed this to us in writing.
The legal and regulatory regime applying to any eligible credit institution or eligible custodian, with whom your assets are held may be different to that of Ireland or the United Kingdom and in the event of a default of such an institution those assets may be treated differently from the position which would apply if the assets were held in Ireland or the United Kingdom. By accepting these Terms you acknowledge that you consent to us holding your assets outside Ireland or the United Kingdom.
Pooling
We may hold assets on your behalf in a pooled account i.e. an account containing the assets of more than one client. In accordance with the requirements of the Financial Regulator these pooled accounts are designated as client accounts. This means that client money is held as part of a common pool of money, so you do not have a claim against a specific sum in a specific account; your claim is against the client money pool in general. We have received written confirmation from the relevant credit institutions and eligible custodians that pooled accounts contain client assets. We reconcile pooled accounts to our own records on a regular basis. By accepting these Terms you acknowledge that you consent to us holding your assets in a pooled account.
10. Conflicts of Interest
When we are dealing for you, we, an associated company or some other person connected with us, may have an interest, relationship or arrangement that is relevant to that investment, transaction or service. However, our employees must act independently, in accordance with our policies on conflicts of interest, and ignore any such interest when making investment decisions for you.
When we enter into a transaction for you we, or one of our associated companies, may be:
- dealing as principal for our or its own account by selling the investment concerned to you or buying it from you. We are registered with the Irish and London Stock Exchanges as a market maker in equities and with the Irish Stock Exchange as a primary dealer in Irish government bonds. We may also act as a principal in transactions in other investment instruments. If we have dealt as principal this will be shown on the contract note.
- matching your transaction with that of another client by acting for them as well as for you;
- buying or selling units in a collective investment scheme or BES scheme where we are, or an associated company is, the trustee or operator of the scheme or an adviser; or
- buying investments where we are, or an associated company is, involved
in a new issue, rights issue, take-over or similar transaction concerning
the security.
11. Foreign exchange conversions
If we carry out a transaction in a foreign currency, we will convert it to the currency in which you have elected to pay or receive money at the rate of exchange we believe is appropriate. We use the market rate that applies as close as practicable to the time of the transaction. We may adjust the market rate to reflect the size of your transaction and the costs we have to pay in providing and supervising this service.
12. Joint accounts
If we hold securities jointly for one or more clients:
- We will be entitled to act on the instructions of any one person named on the account unless otherwise agreed with us in writing. However, in the event that the instruction is to re-register securities held in a nominee account into a single name or to change the correspondence address for the account or relates to payment instructions for the account, we will require a written instruction signed by all joint account holders.
- The definition of client in this document will refer to the clients jointly and severally. If a joint holder dies, the securities will be held for the person(s) who survive(s). We may act without liability on any instructions related to these securities given to us by the person(s) who survive(s).
13. Action for non-payment or non-delivery
We have the right at all times to set-off investments that we hold for you against any money that you owe us.
If you fail to pay for purchases by the due date specified on a contract note, we may:
- Immediately, without further demand or notice, add an administration charge to your account. The current administration charge that we may levy is displayed in our scale of fees and charges at www.davyuk.com;
- Having used reasonable efforts to contact you to demand settlement, sell any investments that we have bought, or which we hold for you, and use the proceeds towards what you owe. We will send you a contract note with details of any such transaction. You will be held responsible for any loss in value that might arise and will be charged commission; and
- At any time, take legal action to recover any amounts you owe.
If the share certificate and/or transfer forms that we receive from you in relation to a sale order are not valid, complete or received by us ahead of the intended settlement date, we can do the following:
- Immediately, without further demand or notice, add an administration charge to your account. The current administration charge that we may levy is displayed in our scale of fees and charges at www.davyuk.com;
- Having used reasonable efforts to contact you to demand settlement, buy an equivalent number of shares to settle your sale transaction. The current administration charge we may levy is displayed in our scale of fees and charges at www.davy.ie. We will add the cost of this purchase to your account, together with commission and an administration charge. We will send you a contract note with details of any such transaction. You will be held responsible for any excess cost or loss in value that might arise; and/or
- If we do not receive the appropriate certificate and transfer forms by the first business day after the date shown, we may add to your account from that day a daily charge as shown in the scale of charges we publish.
If we take legal action against you, we will use reasonable efforts to inform you in writing, by service of proceedings or otherwise.
These rights will not affect any other rights of set-off, combination or lien we may have. It is our policy to pass on all fines, penalties and costs we might incur if you fail to make payment or if you fail to deliver.
14. Margin Payments
If you instruct us to enter into transactions in options, or other derivatives, this may result in your having to make margin payments. This means that you may have to make further variable payments against the purchase price of the investment instead of paying or receiving the entire purchase or sale price immediately. The movement in the market price of your investment will affect the amount of margin payment you will have to make.
If after 2 business days you fail to make margin payments, we will be entitled to close the position using any investments or cash that we hold on your behalf. We will close the position in any event if you fail to pay margin payments after five business days.
15. Changes
We may change these terms by posting a notice to our website describing the relevant changes. These changes will apply on the date we state in the notice, which must be at least 10 business days after the date of the notice, unless this is impractical in the circumstances. No amendment will affect any order or transaction or any legal rights or obligations that may have already arisen.
You may change your relationship with us by:
- changing the investment aims that you set out in the Investment Profile; or
- adding restrictions to those, if any, set out in these terms; or
- changing or lifting any restrictions you have previously set.
Any such revision will only become effective when we receive a letter from you setting out the revision concerned. No amendment will affect any order or transaction or any legal rights or obligations that may have already arisen.
16. Your right to cancel or withdraw
When we execute a transaction on your behalf, whether it is on an advisory or execution only basis, you will not have the right to cancel the transaction after it has been dealt.
However, FSA rules do provide for a right to cancel certain types of insurance contracts and pension schemes after these have dealt. Where we advise you on these, you may also be allowed a short period in which to withdraw from a contract to invest in a packaged product and PEP/ISA saving scheme. You may not always get back the full amount invested when cancelling due to market valuation and bid/offer spreads. If any of these rights apply to your transactions we will let you know at the time.
17. Redress
Should you be dissatisfied at any time with the service that you receive from Davy, do not hesitate to make this known to us. We have an internal complaints procedure and will deal with your complaint promptly. Please address your correspondence to your Portfolio Manager, Davy, 2nd Floor, Donegall House, 7 Donegall Square North, Belfast BT1 5GB who in turn may refer the matter to the Compliance Department, which is independent of the Portfolio Management Department.
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of our review of your complaint, you may be entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS is an independent public body, set up by law to deal impartially with unresolved complaints from consumers about their individual dealings with financial services providers. This service is free to the complainant. Further details relating to the FOS, including how to make a complaint, are available at http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk; by telephone on +44 845 080 1800; or by emailing complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
18. Ending this relationship
You are entitled to end this relationship at any time by sending written notice to your Portfolio Manager, Davy, 2nd Floor, Donegall House, 7 Donegall Square North, Belfast BT1 5GB, which notice will take effect on the first business day after receipt, or such later date as may be specified, subject in either case, to the completion of outstanding transactions.
We may terminate the agreement at any time by giving you notice in writing, or orally or by facsimile, electronic or other virtually instantaneous communication medium. Such termination will be effective from the date specified in the notice. Termination will not affect accrued rights, existing commitments or any contractual provision intended to survive termination and will be without penalty. If, on termination, any sum is, or may become, due from you to us, you shall pay such sum to us immediately, and without demand. On termination of the agreement, we reserve the right to cancel close out, terminate or reverse any transaction or enter into any other transaction or do anything which has the effect of reducing or eliminating any liability under any contracts, positions or commitments undertaken on your behalf.
If our relationship ends, we may transfer any securities we hold in our nominee service back to you or transfer them to a custodian nominated by you. We reserve the right to charge a fee to re-certificate or transfer your securities; fees currently applicable are displayed on our current rate card at www.davyuk.com. However, we may retain securities to pay off any amounts you owe to us. If you fail to give us written instructions within 30 days, we may register any securities we are holding into your name at your last known address and send them to that address. On ending this relationship, you shall pay without demand.
19. Investor compensation
We are a member of a statutory Investor Compensation Scheme, which provides
compensation to eligible investors. You will only have a right to compensation
if you qualify as an eligible investor; if we are unable to return money
or investment instruments that you are owed or own; and if your loss is
recognised by the Investor Compensation Scheme. The amount of compensation
you may receive will be 90% of the net amount you have lost or £20,000;
whichever is less. For more information, visit
http://www.investorcompensation.ie.
20. Excluding our liability
We and any person or company connected with us (including our or their directors, employees or agents) do not have any responsibility for any loss or loss of profit you suffer as a result of performing or not performing our obligations under these terms. However, we will be liable if the loss is caused by our fraud, wilful default, or gross negligence.
Any instructions you give are your responsibility and we will not be liable for any loss arising from carrying out or failing to carry out any of your instructions or for any loss you suffer as a result of transferring any invalid or forged instrument.
However, this will not exclude or restrict any obligation that we have to you under the rules of any relevant regulatory body.
We will not have breached these terms if we fail to carry out our duties and obligations as a result of any event beyond our reasonable control, including without limitation - fire; act of Government or State; act of God; war or civil commotion; embargo; inability to communicate with others on the stock market for whatever reason; failure of any computer dealing or settlement system; being prevented from using any fuel or other supplies; labour disputes; late delivery or late payment by any other person.
21. Personal information
We fully respect your right to privacy, and your personal information will be treated in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 (and any amending or substituting legislation) as well as our own principles regarding client confidentiality. We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that our employees and agents are aware of and comply with such legislation and with firm policies in relation to Data Protection. We use your personal information only for the purpose for which you provide it. In certain circumstances, we may be obliged to disclose personal information relating to you to third parties without notice to you, for example, in order to conform to a legal or regulat:wory requirement; to comply with a legal process; to carry out our duties under our Terms of Business; or to assert, protect or defend our rights of property or your rights.
Other than as provided above, we will not put your personal data to any use other than that for which it was provided, without your prior written consent.
If you decide at any time that you no longer wish us to hold or use personal information relating to you, or if the information we hold is or becomes inaccurate, please notify us in writing, and we will remove or rectify the information, within a reasonable time.
You are entitled to access information that we hold relating to you and can do so by applying to us in writing. We reserve the right to charge a reasonable administration fee (not to exceed £10) for each access request. We are entitled to take reasonable steps to establish your identity in relation to any amendment, access or deletion request and may, at our discretion, require proof of identity or other documents.
We are required by the rules of the Irish Stock Exchange to record telephone calls. We retain telephone records for a period of not less than six months. Other data will be retained for no longer than necessary for the purpose for which it is provided and as required to satisfy regulatory requirements. We retain client transaction records for a period of six years
22. Other important matters
These terms, and our relationship, are governed by the law of Northern Ireland. Any dispute arising under these Terms & Conditions shall be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Northern Ireland. We will communicate with you in English during the course of our relationship.
If we decide not to enforce any of our rights, it will not mean that we cannot enforce them in the future. The rights in these terms apply as well as any rights we have in law.