Privacy policy

We may collect personal information from you in the course of our business, including through your use of our website, when you contact or request information from us, when you engage our legal or other services or as a result of your relationship with one or more of our staff and clients.

The personal information that we process includes:

• Basic information, such as your name (including name prefix or title), the company you work for, your title or position and your relationship to a person

• Contact information, such as your postal address, email address and phone number(s)

• Financial information, such as payment-related information

• Technical information, such as information from your visits to our website or applications or in relation to materials and communications we send to you electronically, collected through cookies and other tracking technologies Information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings and events, including access and dietary requirements

• Identification and background information provided by you or collected as part of our business acceptance processes

• Personal information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients or generated by us in the course or providing services to them, which may include personal sensitive information, such as information relating to your health or religious beliefs

• Any other information relating to you which you may provide to us

• We collect information directly from you as part of our business acceptance processes and about you and others as necessary in the course of providing legal services

• We collect your personal information while monitoring and analyzing our technology tools and services, including email communications sent to and from Lang Yue 

• Your personal information may be provided to us or collected by us in connection with the procurement or provision of technology, goods or services  

• We gather information about you when you provide it to us, or interact with us directly, for instance engaging with our staff or registering on one of our digital platforms, applications or training courses

• We may collect or receive information about you from other sources, such as keeping the contact details and professional information we already hold for you accurate and up to date using publicly available sources, including LinkedIn, or collecting information from third party sources as part of our business acceptance or supplier onboarding procedures

Lang Yue collects and processes personal information about you in a number of ways, including through your use of our website and in the provision of services by us. We use that information:

• To provide and improve our services to you and to our clients, including handling the personal information of others on behalf of our clients, and to monitor compliance with our policies and standards
• To manage access to our premises and for security purposes
• To provide information requested by you
• To promote our services, including sending legal updates, publications and details of events
• To manage and administer our business and our relationship with you and our clients
• To better understand our clients’ or potential clients’ services and marketing requirements and our own business and to develop our services and offerings
• For professional networking purposes
• To fulfil our legal, regulatory and risk management obligations, including establishing, exercising or defending legal claims, complying with the rules of professional bodies of which we are a member, preventing crime or fraud and protecting the rights of third parties
• For the purposes of recruitment 

Use of Lang Yue website

A number of facilities on our website invite you to provide us with personal information, such as the vacancy application facility in the ‘Careers’ section of our website and our email queries facilities. The purpose of these facilities is apparent at the point that you provide your personal information and we only use that information for those purposes. 

Marketing and other emails

We use personal information to understand whether you read the emails and other materials, such as legal publications, that we send to you, click on the links to the information that we include in them and whether and how you visit our website after you click on that link (immediately and on future visits).  

If you receive marketing communications from us and no longer wish to do so, you may unsubscribe at any time by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you, or sending an email to enquiry@langyuelaw.com

Meetings, events and seminars

We will collect and process personal information about you in relation to your attendance at our offices or at an event, training or seminar organised by Lang Yue or its business partners. We will only process and use special categories of personal information about your dietary or access requirements in order to cater for your needs and to meet any other legal or regulatory obligations we may have. We may share your information with IT and other service providers or business partners involved in organising or hosting the relevant event. Before sharing, we may disclose the information relating to such service providers or business partners to the extent reasonably necessary and obtain your consent if necessary.

Legal and other services

We collect, create, hold and use personal information in the course of and in connection with the services we provide to our clients.  We will process identification and background information as part of our business acceptance, finance, administration and marketing processes, including anti-money laundering, conflict, reputational and financial checks.  We will also process personal information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients or generated by us for the purposes of the work we do for them.  The information may be disclosed to third parties to the extent reasonably necessary in connection with that work in which case we may obtain your consent if necessary.  Please also see‘Who we share your personal information with’and‘Which countries we transfer your personal information to’below. 

The principle legal grounds that justify our use of your personal information are:

• To enter into and perform a contract, such as engaging with an individual to provide legal or other services

• For the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims or proceedings

• To comply with legal and regulatory obligations.

• Consent, where your consent is required by law

• Other legal grounds under applicable laws and regulations.

Your personal information will be retained in accordance with our data retention policy which categorises all of the information held by us and specifies the appropriate retention period for each category of data. Those periods are based on the requirements of applicable data protection laws and the purpose for which the information is collected and used, taking into account legal and regulatory requirements to retain the information for a minimum period, limitation periods for taking legal action, good practice and Lang Yue’s business purposes.

We are a law firm established in the People’s Republic of China (the PRC). We have formed a joint operation named “Allen & Overy Lang Yue (FTZ) Joint Operation Office” with Allen & Overy LLP in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (Joint Operation). As of May 1 2024, Allen & Overy is known as A&O Shearman (trading as Allen & Overy LLP in the People’s Republic of China pending registration of the new name with the Ministry of Justice). For the purposes of providing you relevant services as described under “How we use your personal information” through the Joint Operation, any information that you provide to us may also be shared with and processed by any entity in the worldwide network of A&O Shearman and its associated firms to the extent necessary. You can see a list of A&O Shearman offices here.

A&O Shearman refers to Allen Overy Shearman LLP, its subsidiaries and other partnerships, corporations, undertakings and entities which are authorized to practice using a name which includes ‘Allen Overy Shearman Sterling’ or ‘A&O Shearman’, including Consulting by A&O Shearman. Please visit A&O Shearman’s Country-specific Legal Notices pages for details of the A&O Shearman entity in each jurisdiction and, where necessary having regard to local applicable data protection or privacy laws, a country-specific privacy notice.

We may also share your personal information with certain trusted third parties in accordance with contractual arrangements in place with them. If we do so, we may first notify you and obtain your consent to the extent necessary and reasonably practicable. Such third parties include:

• Our professional advisers and auditors

• Our insurers and insurance brokers

• Suppliers to whom we outsource certain support services such as word processing, translation, photocopying and document review

• IT service providers to Lang Yue and the Joint Operation

• Third parties engaged in the course of the services we or the Joint Operation provides to clients and with their prior consent, such as barristers, local counsel and technology service providers like data room and case management services

• Third parties involved in hosting or organizing events or seminars

Where necessary, or for the reasons set out in this policy, personal information may also be shared with regulatory authorities, courts, tribunals, government agencies and law enforcement agencies. While it is unlikely, we may be required to disclose your information to comply with legal or regulatory requirements. We will use reasonable endeavours to notify you before we do this, unless we are legally restricted from doing so.

If in the future we re-organize or transfer all or part of our business, we may need to, after notifying you, transfer your information to the new legal entity(ies) or to third parties through which the business of Lang Yue will be carried out. 

Lang Yue may use social media sites and applications such as LinkedIn and WeChat or insert links to other third-party websites on its website. If you use these services or click on the links, you should review their privacy policy for more information on how they deal with your personal information. 

We use a variety of technical and organizational measures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction consistent with applicable data protection laws.

Lang Yue’s document management and email systems and the supporting infrastructure are certified to the internationally recognized ISO/IEC 27001 security standard. This is an independently verified certification to ensure that information security is managed in line with international best practice. 

In order to provide our services through the Joint Operation, we may need to transfer, store and process your personal information to locations outside the jurisdiction in which you provide it or where you are viewing this website for the purposes set out in this privacy policy. This may entail a transfer of your information from a location within the PRC to outside the PRC, or from outside the PRC to a location within the PRC. Please see ‘Who we share your personal information with’ for more detail on how the information may be shared with A&O Shearman offices and third party service providers.

Where your information is transferred cross-border, we will implement appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information remains protected and secure in accordance with applicable data protection laws. EU standard contractual clauses are in place between Lang Yue and the relevant A&O Shearman entities that share and process personal information. Where our third party service providers process personal information outside the PRC in the course of providing services to us, our written agreement with them will include appropriate measures.

The applicable data protection laws and regulations provide certain rights for data subjects. 

You are entitled to request details of the information we hold about you and how we process it. You may also have a right in accordance with applicable data protection law to have it rectified or deleted, to restrict our processing of that information, to stop unauthorized transfers of your personal information to a third party and, in some circumstances, to have personal information relating to you transferred to another organization. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to our processing of your personal information with us or the competent supervisory authority.

If you object to the processing of your personal information, or if you have provided your consent to processing and you later choose to withdraw it, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations. 

Your objection (or withdrawal of any previously given consent) could mean that we are unable to perform the actions necessary to achieve the purposes set out above (see ‘How we use your personal information’) or that you may not be able to make use of the services and products offered by us. Please note that even after you have chosen to withdraw your consent we may be able to continue to process your personal information to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law, in particular in connection with exercising and defending our legal rights or meeting our legal and regulatory obligations.

We must ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Therefore, please advise us of any changes to your information by email to enquiry@langyuelaw.com

We will update this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes to the way in which we use your personal information. Please check our website regularly for any updates.  

This privacy policy was last updated in November 2024.

If you need further information or have any questions or complaints about our privacy policy or practices, please contact: 

Shanghai Lang Yue Law Firm

Room 1514 – 1516, 15F Phase II IFC, 8 Century Avenue

Shanghai 200120

People’s Republic of China

Email: enquiry@langyuelaw.com