1. Introduction
You are presently navigating the website of the law firm Lafortune Cadieux Inc. (“Lafortune Cadieux”) (lafortunecadieux.com). In doing so, you accept the terms and conditions of use as provided below. If that is not your intent, we urge you to leave this site.
Lafortune Cadieux reserves the right to deny you the use of this website where it has reason to believe that you do not comply with the following terms and conditions of use.
2. No Legal Opinion
The contents of this website is provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. You should not act on the sole basis of the information contained in this website. Each situation is different and we recommend that you seek advice from a lawyer to discuss any legal question you may have.
3. No Lawyer-Client Relationship
No lawyer-client relationship between yourself and Lafortune Cadieux or any of its representatives shall result from your use of this website and the information contained therein.
4. Unsolicited Emails and Other Mass Mailings
Please do not use the information on this website, including the email addresses shown here, to send, distribute, or facilitate the transmission of unsolicited emails or other mass mailings to Lafortune Cadieux, its shareholders, directors, employees or partners.
5. Intellectual Property
You acknowledge that this Site and its content are protected by Québec and Canadian laws on intellectual property, including, without limitations, the Copyright Act and the Trademarks Act. All the trademarks of Lafortune Cadieux, our business name, the domain name “lafortunecadieux.com”, as well as our logo, and all items accessible on this website, including texts, images, designs, icons, sounds, code, applications, etc., are protected by these laws and are our exclusive property and any non-authorized use is prohibited. Any attempt to access the source code of this website is also prohibited.
You undertake not to, directly or indirectly, violate, create confusion with or contest the validity of intellectual property owned, controlled, registered or used under license by Lafortune Cadieux.
6. License
Lafortune Cadieux grants a limited license to the users of this website. This website may only be used for personal, educational and non-commercial purposes. You are not authorized to copy, modify, reproduce in multiple copies, publish, transmit or distribute the contents of this website in whole or in part, or to sell the contents without the written consent of a duly authorized representative of Lafortune Cadieux. You may view, consult, display, print, store in memory and download the website’s contents, provided that you do not remove the copyright mentions contained therein and that you indicate the source of such contents. Any other use is strictly prohibited.
7. Protection of Personal Information (Privacy Policy)
At Lafortune Cadieux, respect for your privacy and the protection of your personal information are priorities. As a law firm, we collect, use and disclose information in order to render our services in consultation, litigation and transaction. Confidentiality is important to us, as we put professional secrecy at the heart of our client relationship. We use all information, especially personal information, in accordance with the highest ethical standards, and we comply with Quebec and Canadian laws on the protection of privacy.
This Section of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy aims to help you understand our personal information collection, use, disclosure and retention practices. By browsing this website, by retaining our services or by providing us with personal information (whether via our website, by email, in person or over the phone or during a virtual conference), you agree to the processing set out in these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, as well as authorize Lafortune Cadieux, its representatives and service providers to process your personal information for the purposes set out below.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and Lafortune Cadieux is not responsible for, any third-party websites which may be accessible through links from this website. If you follow a link to any of these third-party websites, they will have their own privacy policies and you will need to check these policies before you submit any personal information to such third-party websites, which could be subject to the laws of a jurisdiction than that of Québec, which laws may differ, with respect to the processing of personal information, from those applicable in Québec.
7.1 Our objectives and the type of personal information that we collect
Lafortune Cadieux is a law firm that operates in the province of Québec. We are responsible for the processing of the personal information which is submitted to us.
We may collect and process different types of personal information in the course of operating our business and providing our services. These include:
• Contact information such as name, physical address, email address and telephone number;
• Biographical information such as job title, employer, photograph and video or audio content;
• Billing and financial information such as billing address, bank account and payment information;
• Services information such as details of services that we have rendered to you;
• Information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients or generated by us in the course of providing our services, which may, where relevant, include special categories of personal information (such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership, health or sexual orientation, etc.);
• Personal information defined as “sensitive personal information” (the “sensitive information”) in the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Québec), namely medical, biometric or other intimate information, or information which, due to the context of its use or communication, entails a high level of reasonable expectation of privacy, such as, without limitations:
(i) Birth dates;
(ii) Social insurance numbers;
(iii) Medical information;
(iv) Identification.
• Identification and other background verification data such as a copy of driver’s licence, passports or utility bills or evidence of beneficial ownership or of the source of funds necessary to comply with anti-money laundering laws and collected as part of our client acceptance and ongoing monitoring procedures;
• Recruitment information such as your curriculum vitae, your education and employment history, details of professional memberships and other information relevant to potential recruitment or association to or with Lafortune Cadieux or a corporation related to Lafortune Cadieux;
• Professional information or information related to the contract for services of our services providers or to the employment of our employees (such as title and compensation history, schedule, benefit and leave information, information regarding any issues or disputes that may arise, performance reports and evaluations, psychometric test results, disciplinary records, date of termination of employment and the reasons for the termination of the employment, surveys and any information relevant to the protection of health and safety at work);
• Information collected by Lafortune Cadieux on the use of Internet, of its network, its devices and its premises by its employees and services providers and information related to their use of their professional email address. Lafortune Cadieux may also collect images, videos and photos of its premises through closed circuit video cameras; and
• Marketing, communication preferences and related information such as feedback and survey responses; and
• Any other personal information provided.
We generally collect personal information that you voluntarily provide, but we may collect information from third parties and as agents on behalf of our clients where we or they have obtained the required consent, or as otherwise permitted or required by law. We may also collect information through our website, although that information is typically restricted to your name and email address.
We will obtain your consent prior to collecting, using or disclosing personal Information for any purpose, except where otherwise permitted or required by law. Consent may be provided orally or in writing or may be implied, such as where you continue to provide personal information to us in the context of our ongoing relationship, or where you provide lawyers or employees of Lafortune Cadieux with non-business contact information in connection with our service offerings. This includes providing personal information to Lafortune Cadieux in the course of our representing you in litigation matters, which may subsequently require disclosure as part of the litigation proceedings.
By providing us with personal information, you consent to our collection, use, disclosure, holding and processing of such personal information in accordance with these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and as permitted or required by law.
To the extent that you provide us with personal information of another individual (such as your clients, your directors, your officers, your shareholders or your employees), you represent that you duly notified them and that you have obtained the necessary consent to this disclosure of personal information.
We do not voluntarily collect information from children or other persons who are under 14 years old. If you are a minor under 14 years old, please do not provide us with any personal information without the express consent of a parent or guardian. If you are a parent or guardian and you know that your children have provided us with personal information, please contact us. If you provide us with personal information regarding your child who is a minor under 14 years of age, you must have parental authority over or be the tutor of that person. By providing such personal information, you consent to its collection, use, disclosure, holding and processing by Lafortune Cadieux. If we learn that we have collected personal information from minor children without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to remove that information from our servers.
You cannot send us confidential information or sensitive personal information, until we have confirmed in writing that we represent or act for you or your company or organization or that we act on your behalf or on behalf of your company or organization. Unsolicited emails sent to us from non-clients do not establish a lawyer-client relationship. They may not be privileged and, therefore, may be subject to disclosure to third parties.
7.2 Means of collection of personal information
We collect your personal information from yourself and during interactions with you, as follows:
• During the course of providing legal services to you;
• When information is publicly available, notably on this website, in public records or on social networks pages or accounts;
• By email, when you write to us or provide us with documentation;
• Over the phone, when you disclose personal information during a call;
• During a virtual conference, when you disclose personal information and when you write to us or provide us with documentation;
• By mail, when you write to us or provide us with documentation;
• When you register for newsletters or seminars; and
• Following a verbal or written request from Lafortune Cadieux for the purpose of providing our services.
7.3 Purposes for which your personal information is collected
We may use personal information in one or the other of the following ways, either with your consent or, where applicable, according to another legal basis under the applicable laws. In each case, we identify the grounds that we rely on to use your personal information:
• To provide our legal and other services and to conduct our business, to administer and perform our services, including to carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you and us;
• To validate our client’s identity and create their client’s file;
• To understand and fulfil the needs and preferences of our clients and to answer their questions, comments and other requests for information;
• To respond to requests for information or enquiries from visitors to our websites;
• To facilitate the use of our website and to ensure content is relevant and to ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device;
• For marketing and business development purposes – to provide details of new services, legal updates and invitations to events where an individual has chosen to receive these;
• For research and development purposes (including from a security perspective) – analysis in order to better understand our clients’ services and marketing requirements and to better understand our business and develop our services and offerings; you may unsubscribe at any time;
• For recruitment purposes – to enable us to process applications for employment and to assess an individual’s suitability for any position for which he/she may apply at Lafortune Cadieux or a corporation related to Lafortune Cadieux;
• To manage relations with services providers and employees, including verifying the identity of people working for Lafortune Cadieux, managing taxes and social security, planning schedules and monitoring attendance and hours worked, processing social benefits, managing payroll, allowances, sick leaves and leaves, evaluate performance and handle requests from Lafortune Cadieux’s employees or service providers in relation to their work or the provision of their services;
• To fulfil our legal, regulatory, or risk management obligations – to comply with our legal obligations (performing client due diligence/“know your client”, anti-bribery, sanctions or reputational risk screening, identifying conflicts of interests);
• To fight against fraud and/or to perform other relevant background checks, notably as may be required by applicable law and regulation and/or best practice at any given time (if false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified or suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies and may be recorded by us or by them). Where we process special categories of personal information we may also rely on substantial public interest (prevention or detection of crime) or legal claims;
• To enforce our legal rights, to comply with our legal or regulatory reporting obligations and/or to protect the rights of third parties;
• To ensure that we are paid – to recover any payments due to us and where necessary to enforce such recovery through the engagement of debt collection agencies or taking other legal action (including the commencement and carrying out of legal and court proceedings); and
• To reorganize or make changes to our business – In the event that we undergo a reorganization (for example if we merge, combine or divest a part of our business), we may need to transfer some or all of personal information to the relevant third party (or its advisors) as part of any due diligence process or transfer to that reorganized entity or third party your personal information for the same purposes as set out in this Privacy Policy or for the purpose of analyzing any proposed reorganization.
7.4 Disclosure of personal information
We will always try to minimize, as much as possible in the performance of our services and the application of the legal rules to which we are subject, the disclosure of personal information concerning you. However, in the course of providing our services or operating this website, we may share personal information with certain third parties, including the following:
• Where an exception allowing the disclosure of such personal information is provided by the law, by example (and without limitations), in the context of commercial transactions for which you would have mandated us as legal advisers, pursuant to the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Quebec);
• Third-party service providers and/or partners who provide us with information technology support (IT), services pertaining to website, social networks pages or accounts, application development, hosting and maintenance, and with other services. These third parties may have access to, or process personal information as part of providing those services for us. We limit the information provided to these service providers to that which is reasonably necessary for them to perform their services, and our contracts with them require them to maintain the confidentiality of such information;
• Law enforcement and governmental entities, when required by law. For greater clarity, we may disclose personal information or other information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with applicable laws, in response to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena or warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with law enforcement or other governmental agencies; and
• An acquirer, successor or assignee of Lafortune Cadieux or a corporation related to Lafortune Cadieux, as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of assets, or similar transaction, as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets.
We will only use personal information to fulfil the primary purpose and applicable legitimate purpose it was collected for, or for a purpose compatible with that primary purpose.
Within Lafortune Cadieux, the access to personal information is limited to employees, agents and mandataries who are qualified to know this information and for whom this information is necessary in the performance of their duties, their mandate or their contract (need to know basis).
7.5 Time of conservation of personal information
We will only keep personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the relevant purposes set out in these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and in order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, and always in conformity with the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Quebec), the Code of Professional Conduct of Lawyers and any other applicable law. Subject to any preservation period provided by any of such laws, your personal information, once the purpose for which it was collected is achieved, will be destroyed or anonymized, pursuant to the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Québec).
7.6 Places of storage of personal information
We will always try to limit, as much as possible, all disclosure of personal information outside of the province of Quebec, and, as the case may be, such disclosure will not happen without an assessment of privacy-related factors pursuant to the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Quebec) and any other applicable law. It is understood, however, that third-parties suppliers (such as Microsoft, Google or a cloud services provider) may hold, sometimes even without our knowledge, personal information concerning you in other countries or jurisdiction where they have servers or installations, for storage or internal processing only, with respect to the services they may provide us. By providing us with personal information, you consent to such potential storage of personal information on servers or installations outside of Canada and accept that we are not responsible for such detention, it being understood that Lafortune Cadieux: (i) shall take the necessary means to ensure that it does business with trustable, verified and secure suppliers, which are broadly used and known in their field of activities and which operate, as much as it is possible in the then-applicable technological context, inside Canada; and (ii) shall take, at the best of its capacities and in accordance with reasonable commercial practices, in the then-applicable technological context, contractual or other reasonable measures to ensure protections of personal information at least equivalent to those applicable in Québec.
It is understood that when personal information is located outside your country of residence, they may be subject to the laws of the country where they are stored, and may be subject to a disclosure to governments, tribunals or law enforcement agencies or regulations of the country in question, pursuant to its laws.
However, our practices regarding your personal information stays at all times governed by these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
7.7 Protection of your personal information
We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. We maintain appropriate physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect personal information against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss, unauthorized alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, misuse, and any other unlawful form of processing of the personal information in our possession. We have taken steps to ensure that the only personnel, under a duty of confidentiality, who are granted access to your personal information are those with a business ‘need-to-know’ or whose duties reasonably require such information.
However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit or provide to us, and you do so at your own risk. We also cannot guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or administrative safeguards. If you believe personal information has been compromised, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer (see contact information at Paragraph 7.11 below).
7.8 Rights in relation to your personal information
Under certain circumstances and in accordance with applicable data protection laws, including the Act respecting the protection of personal information (Quebec), an individual has the following rights:
• Access: entitled to ask if we are processing information and, if we are, request access to personal information. Subject to applicable law and, where applicable, payment of a reasonable transcription, copy or transmission fee, the individual may receive a copy of the personal information we hold and certain other information about him or her or it;
• Portability: the right to obtain copy of a computerized personal information in a structured, commonly used technological format;
• Rights with respect to the use of technologies: your right to be informed if we are using a technology comprising functions allowing to identify, localize or profile you, as the case may be, and to be informed of the means to activate such functions, as the case may be;
• Accuracy: we are required to take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information in our possession is accurate, complete, not misleading and up to date;
• Correction: entitled to request that any incomplete or inaccurate personal information we hold, or any personal information of which the disclosure or holding is not authorized by law, be corrected.
• Erasure: entitled to ask us to delete, destroy or remove personal information in certain circumstances. There are certain exceptions where we may refuse a request for erasure or destruction, for example, where the personal information is required for compliance with law or in connection with claims or required by contract between the parties;
• Right to be forgotten: the right to ask us to cease any disclosure of a personal information or that any hyperlink allowing to access it by a technological mean be de-indexed, or to ask that the hyperlink be re-index, if the disclosure of the personal information violates the law or if the conditions provided by the Act respecting the protection of personal information (Quebec) are met;
• Restriction: entitled to ask us to suspend the processing of certain personal information, for example to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it;
• Automated decision making: the right to have us rectify any personal information used to render a decision based exclusively on automated processing and the right to present its observations to our Chief Privacy Officer; and
• Consent: when we obtained the consent to the processing of personal information, the right to withdraw this consent in the circumstances provided by the law.
To exercise one or the other of these rights, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer which contact information are provided at Paragraph 7.11.
7.9 Process for Dealing with Complaints
The Chief Privacy Officer which contact information are provided at Paragraph 7.11 will process in the shortest delays any complaint reported to him with respect to the use, disclosure, storage and processing, by Lafortune Cadieux, of your personal information. He will give you the opportunity to communicate to him, within 15 days (or any other longer period that may be granted to you by the Chief Privacy Officer, at his sole discretion), a written or verbal statement of the grounds of your complaints as well as any exhibit, document or material evidence in support of this complaint. The Chief Privacy Officer will then render his decision regarding your complaint, within a maximum delay of 30 days following the expiry of the aforementioned period for the communication of the statement.
Finally, it is also possible to file a complaint with an authority governing data protection in the applicable jurisdiction, namely, in the province of Québec, the Commission de l’accès à l’information.
7.10 Confidentiality Incidents
Any confidentiality incident involving personal information shall be immediately reported to the Chief Privacy Officer which contact information is provided at Paragraph 7.11. A confidentiality incident includes the following situations:
• Access not authorized by law to personal information;
• Use not authorized by law of personal information;
• Communication not authorized by law of personal information;
• The loss of personal information or any other breach of the protection of such information.
7.11 Chief Privacy Officer
If you have any question about how we handle your personal information, or if you wish to make a formal request or a complaint pursuant to these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, please contact Lafortune Cadieux’s Chief Privacy Officer:
Me Marie Ribière, at mribiere@lafortunecadieux.com
8. Exclusion of Liability
Lafortune Cadieux does not warrant the accuracy, relevance or reliability of this website’s contents, nor does it guarantee that the contents will be available without errors or omissions. The user of this website releases Lafortune Cadieux of any responsibility which may arise from the use of inaccurate information provided on this website. The information contained in this website shall in no circumstances be construed as a legal opinion and Lafortune Cadieux is not responsible for any usage thereof.
Lafortune Cadieux does not guarantee an uninterrupted access to this website and to the contents of the links offered on this website. Any malfunction of the server or network of Lafortune Cadieux or of its suppliers cannot entail the liability of Lafortune Cadieux. Likewise, Lafortune Cadieux is not liable for an interruption, programmed or not, of the access to the Site, by example in case of a breakdown, for maintenance purposes or for any force majeure event and shall not be held liable of any damage whatsoever resulting from the unavailability of the Site.
Lafortune Cadieux assumes no liability for viruses, worms or invasive or destructive computer programs or for personal information that may be intercepted by third parties on this website. You are solely responsible for the use and interpretation of the information contained in this website.
Lafortune Cadieux shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental or punitive damage that may result from the use of this website, its contents or the impossibility to use it, even where Lafortune Cadieux has been advised thereof.
9. Links to Third-Party Websites
This website may contain links to third-party website or applications. These external websites or applications are not operated by Lafortune Cadieux and Lafortune Cadieux assumes no responsibility for the content, data policies or practices of these websites or applications. You access those websites or applications at your own risks. Lafortune Cadieux recommends to the User to consult the data policies and general terms of use of these websites and applications.
10. Applicable Laws and Jurisdiction
This website is governed by and construed and interpreted according to the laws of the Province of Quebec (Canada) and the Canadian federal laws applicable therein.
You hereby expressly attorn to the Courts of the judicial district of Montreal, Province of Québec (Canada), which shall have exclusive jurisdiction with respect to any proceeding arising or in connection, in any way, with this website, its use or any matter in connection with the protection of your personal information.
11. French and English Versions
In case of conflict between the French and English versions of these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, the French version shall prevail.
12. Modification of these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
We may modify the content of this website without notice. These Terms of Use and Privacy Policy may be modified, without notice, from time to time in the future. We thus encourage you to examine it each time you visit this website, specially to be informed of the way we process your personal information.
These Terms of Use and Privacy Policy has last been updated in March 2024.
For any additional information with respect to this website, please contact us at the following address: info@lafortunecadieux.com