Our services to clients

In this section, "you" refers to clients to whom we provide our professional services.

Complaints

Allen & Overy is committed to providing the highest quality of service to our clients. If you are a client and you are dissatisfied with any aspect of the service provided to you we would ask that in the first instance you contact the partner responsible for the matter or your relationship partner who will be happy to discuss the matter with you. If you are still dissatisfied, then you are entitled to invoke our complaints process. A copy of our complaints procedure may be obtained from Allen & Overy’s General Counsel.

If the matter is still not resolved at the conclusion of our complaints process, you may be entitled to ask the Legal Ombudsman of England and Wales to consider your complaint. A complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must normally be made within six months of the date of the conclusion of a firm's complaints process. Details of how to contact the Legal Ombudsman and further information, including the eligibility criteria for invoking the Legal Ombudsman's services, can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk .

You have a right to challenge or complain about a bill. If all or part of a bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest on the outstanding amount unless a client has raised an unresolved bona fide query.

SRA Price Transparency Statement

We primarily act for employers defending claims, which may involve discrimination, whistleblowing and other regulatory or multi-jurisdictional aspects. Read our transparency statement here.

Professional indemnity insurance

Allen & Overy has in place professional indemnity insurance led by Travelers Syndicate 5000 at Lloyd’s, 33 St Mary Axe, London EC3A 8AG and supported by other major insurance companies and Lloyds syndicates (Policy No. P8086636 and others).

Our professional indemnity insurance covers Allen & Overy entities worldwide and extends to acts or omissions wherever in the world they occur. Further details may be obtained from Allen & Overy's General Counsel

Financial services regulation

The provision of our legal services may relate to investments (including insurance contracts). We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or the Prudential Regulation Authority of England. However, we are included on the register maintained by the FCA so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. The FCA’s register is available on their website at www.fca.org.uk.

We can also undertake certain activities in relation to other investments which are limited in scope and incidental to our legal services or which may reasonably be regarded as a necessary part of our legal services.

The basis for carrying out these services

We will act as legal advisers. It is not part of our function to advise on the merits of investment transactions, to act as a broker or arranger of transactions, or to communicate invitations or inducements to engage in investment activity.
Nothing we say or do should be construed as advice on the investment merits of acquiring or disposing of particular investments nor an invitation, recommendation or inducement to engage in investment activity, including contracts of insurance.
We assume that any decision by you to discuss or negotiate any transaction on which we act, and any decision actually to enter into any transaction, has been or will be made by you on the basis of your own assessment of the business, financial and policy aspects of the particular transaction.

In the course of any transaction on which we act and in order to complete it, it is expected that we will communicate with you, your other advisers and the other parties to the transaction (and their advisers) in a number of ways, including, by telephone, email, fax, letter and in meetings. Amongst other things, we would expect to circulate various documents for your review and to arrange and participate in meetings and telephone calls to discuss, negotiate, agree and sign the relevant documents. We will treat your participation in such meetings, telephone calls or other forms of communication with us as a request to receive such communications.

Regulation

Allen & Overy LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales (SRA) and its English practice is, therefore, subject to the SRA Principles 2011 and SRA Code of Conduct 2011, including as regards arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong. The SRA Overseas Rules 2013 apply similar principles to Allen & Overy’s offices outside England and Wales, in addition to the application of local laws and professional regulations, and Allen & Overy LLP is required to ensure that its overseas practices comply with such principles. For more information about the SRA, please visit their website at: www.sra.org.uk.

Our right to retain documents

In some jurisdictions there are circumstances in which we will have the right to keep documents that belong to you even if you ask us to return or destroy them. In particular, this may occur if you have not paid all of our invoices.

Data protection legislation

For information about how we process data we receive through users of this website, please see our Privacy Policy.

Anti-money laundering laws

Under anti-money laundering laws, we may need formal evidence of your identity before we can act and may also conduct checks using external electronic databases for this purpose. We must also report suspicions of money laundering activity to our Money Laundering Reporting Officer or to the relevant external authorities, or both. We may have to stop work on a matter and may not be allowed to tell you if we make such a report. We will not be liable to you for the consequences of any such report made in good faith.

Anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws

We have in place robust anti-fraud and anti-corruption policies and procedures and we have zero tolerance of bribery or corruption by, or on behalf of, any part of the firm around the world. These policies apply to all Allen & Overy partners and members of staff worldwide, and to third parties providing services on our behalf.

We require all partners and members of staff, at all times, to act honestly and with integrity, and to safeguard the resources for which they are responsible. Fraud or corruption by partners or members of staff could violate applicable laws, present a threat to Allen & Overy and will not be tolerated in any circumstances.

For more detailed information about our anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies and procedures, please contact us.

Attorney advertising

Some of the material on this website may constitute attorney advertising within the meaning of sections 1200.1 and 1200.6-8 of Title 22 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulatory Attorney Advertising Regulations. The following statement is made on this website in accordance with those rules:

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING; PRIOR RESULTS DO NOT GUARANTEE A SIMILAR OUTCOME.

Interest policy

It is our policy to account to our clients for a sum in lieu of interest on a fair and reasonable basis. In particular:

Client monies will be deposited in a general client account (in which amounts for different clients are pooled) unless otherwise instructed (see below).
Client monies will be held in an instant access account in order to facilitate transactions unless otherwise instructed.
Interest will normally be calculated at a rate equivalent to that available to Allen & Overy at the time the client monies are held had the client monies been deposited in a separate instant access account.
If the total amount of interest calculated over the course of a transaction is less than £20 no payment in lieu of interest will be paid