The partnership trading as Cooper Grace Ward ABN 95 591 906 639 (we, us or our) is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. You can access our full privacy policy here.

Cooper Grace Ward is a full service commercial law firm that provides legal advice in numerous areas such as commercial, insurance, construction and infrastructure, workplace relations and safety, property, planning and environment, estate planning, family law, insolvency, restructuring and debt recovery, and litigation and dispute resolution.

Barea Pty. Ltd. ACN 010 157 436 as trustee for the H & H Service Trust trading as CGW Structures (CGW Structures) is an associated entity of Cooper Grace Ward. Calls and enquires made to Cooper Grace Ward may be referred to CGW Structures. The privacy policy and privacy collection statement for CGW Structures can be accessed at https://cgwstructures.com.au.

The primary purpose for which we collect personal information from you is to provide you with legal and other services. We may also use or disclose the personal information we collect (including information we are required by law to collect) for another purpose, such as to comply with our legal obligations including our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth), to accept a whistleblower disclosure from you,  to inform you of updates and changes in the law that may affect you or your associated entities, and to invite you to events. You may choose not to receive such communications at any time.

Our usual process of collecting personal information varies, as we have a large referral network and it is not possible to provide an exhaustive list of entities that might provide us with personal information. Generally, we collect personal information directly from you or from your advisers or consultants. For example, this might include collecting personal information about you from your accountant or financial advisers, banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, barristers and other solicitors, paid search providers, your employer, superannuation provider, government body or other professional adviser or agent connected to you. We may also collect information from other reporting entities and government agencies in connection with our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) (AML/CTF obligations).

The information is usually collected before and during the course of providing the legal services to you.

Under our professional obligations, we are also required to issue you with an engagement agreement for some matters (see Part 3.4 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld)). For this reason, we will need to collect your contact details before providing the legal services.

If you do not provide us with the requested information, we may not be able to provide you with our legal services. In some cases it may be possible to provide some but not other personal information to us, and you can ask us if this is possible before providing us with your instructions or disclosure. Without limitation, if we do not receive, or cannot verify, information that we are required to obtain for AML/CTF compliance, we may be unable to act for you or continue acting for you.

We do not usually disclose your personal information to other entities, unless it is necessary to provide you with the legal services or you have requested or authorised us to disclose the information to another entity. For example, we may disclose your personal information to your accountant or financial adviser, a barrister or expert witness who is engaged to act for you in litigation, or government body, to CGW Structures (our affiliated entity), to any third party contractors we engage to assist us in providing services to you, or any other entity connected to the legal services we are providing you.

We may also be required by law to disclose personal information to government bodies (such as ASIC, AUSTRAC or the ATO). In some cases, we may be prohibited from disclosing to you that your information has been required by law to be shared with a law enforcement body such as AUSTRAC.

We generally do not disclose your personal information to overseas recipients otherwise than in accordance with your instructions (e.g. if we have to deal with foreign law firms or counter parties for your matter). However, in some cases we may indirectly disclose personal information overseas through our service providers. Without limitation, information collected in connection with our AML/CTF obligations via the First AML platform will be stored securely by First AML as set out in its privacy policy.

Where we disclose your personal information to parties located overseas (or which have data centres located in other countries), we take reasonable steps to ensure that those parties will handle the personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles. We are not required to take such steps if we believe that the overseas recipient is already subject to a law that has the effect of protecting personal information in a substantially similar way to the relevant law in Australia, or with your consent.

Our detailed privacy policy includes further information on how you can access and seek correction of your personal information, how we handle data breaches and how you can complain about a breach of your privacy. The policy also contains information about how we will deal with a complaint.

If you have any concerns about the privacy of your personal information, please consult our full privacy policy or contact our Privacy Officer on +61 7 3231 2444 or by email at privacy@cgw.com.au.