The services provided by Sirius Legal are always in accordance with the agreed assignments. These may include the following services:
We offer these services in the following areas:
For other fields of law, Sirius Legal works closely together with carefully selected law firms in Belgium and abroad.
At Sirius Legal you are always assisted by a designated contact person. Depending on the content of your case, you will be assisted by a specialised colleague, who will follow up on your case in consultation with your contact person. You can contact both your contact person and the lawyer handling your case for information about your case at any time.
Your responsible partner is in charge of the daily follow-up of your file and is assisted by a carefully selected team of employees, interns and administrative workers, as well as, where necessary, by partners from other departments.
When delegating tasks to employees, interns and administrative workers, we always strive to optimize cost control and to ensure the highest possible level of service by assigning the most appropriate person to each task.
In principle, our communication is always by email, telephone or post. We take the utmost care to ensure the security of our communication networks, however, communication via the Internet is never 100% secure. We cannot guarantee the security of our communication networks or the confidentiality of your data when they are sent over these networks. If you prefer not to be contacted by email, please let us know.
Our fees are initially always based on hourly rates, which are calculated as follows, depending on the nature of the case, its complexity, the effort involved, the degree of urgency and the client:
The exact rate in your case is always communicated prior to the start of our work and can, in many cases, consist of a fixed price calculated on the basis of the rates below. Our fees may be reviewed annually.
Partners: 220-250 €/h; excl. VAT
Senior lawyers: 200-240 €/h; excl. VAT
Junior lawyers: 180-200 €/h; excl. VAT
We do not charge any administrative and/or office costs, nor any costs for opening or closing files, and always work with a free first meeting in our offices (or via video call if you wish).
Costs related to the intervention of third parties, such as bailiffs, auditors, accountants, other lawyers, or costs related to legal proceedings will be communicated to you in complete transparency with the request to pay them directly to the person concerned, so that you can be sure at all times that you are only paying the actual costs. Where possible, we will provide you with an estimation of the amount of these costs in advance. Unfortunately, since these are third-party prices, we are unable to estimate these prices with any certainty and therefore cannot be held liable if the price turns out to be higher afterwards.
Before starting your case, we will provide you with a retainer fee for 30% of the amount you approved on the quotation. In cases where we work on hourly basis, the retainer fee amounts to 30% of the estimated budget. Once the retainer fee has been accomplished, we will provide you with an interim fee statement every month, together with a detail of the services we have provided.
Our honorary wage statements are, unless otherwise agreed between us, payable within 21 days after the invoice date. If payment is not made on time, we will charge late-payment interest at 8% without prior notice of default, as well as liquidated damages of 10% of the outstanding amount.
Your responsible service provider is SIRIUS LEGAL BUSINESS LAW FIRM BV, an association of lawyers, with registered office at 2800 Mechelen, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, VAT BE0742.701.086 (info@siriuslegal.be, tel: +32 2/721.13.00). Our trust account number is BE20 6304 3875 9856. The responsible partners are Mr. Bart Van den Brande (registered at the Brussels Bar) and Mr. Roeland Lembrechts (registered at the Antwerp Bar). Sirius Legal is an association according to article 170.2 of the Code of Professional Conduct for lawyers (“Codex Deontologie”).
We are regularly asked to provide details of our activities, particularly for tenders, directories and in regard to journalists. In addition, we try to optimise our own marketing and advertising by means of leaflets, websites, direct mailings, seminars, blog posts, articles, tweets, LinkedIn updates, ….. Unless you explicitly ask us not to, we assume that you hereby agree that we may mention your name and mention you or your company as one of our clients. Before we communicate any information other than the fact that you are a client of ours, we will always ask you for your prior consent. Likewise, when you sign this offer, we will gladly give you permission to use our name and logo in your communications, to refer to our website or to make it known that you work with us. We only ask for the right to request you to modify your communication if we ask you to do so. Indeed, lawyers are subject to a strict deontology, which includes restrictions on advertising, requiring us to exercise restraint and discretion.
Prior to accepting your case, we shall carry out a check for any conflicts of interest based on previous cases we have handled or on other companies or parties involved that may already be clients of ours. If we identify such a conflict of interest, we will inform you of this before we commence our work.
We will save your digital and paper file for five years following its closure, after which they will be destroyed. If there are documents that you did not receive (back) when your file was closed, we ask you to ask us for a copy in time and at least before the end of the five-year period mentioned above.
For the treatment of your file, we depend on the information you give us. You are expected to provide us, punctually and for the entire duration of our assignment, with all useful information and documents that we require for the handling of your file. You are personally responsible for the accuracy, completeness and reliability of the information provided.
Apart from the usual tasks performed in the law firm, you agree that we may call on other lawyers for specific assignments. If the execution of the order requires the assistance of a bailiff or a translator, you leave the choice thereof to us. By contrast, we always choose other third parties such as notaries, experts or accountants in consultation with you.
We are subject to the Law of the 11th of January 1993 on the Prevention of the Use of the Financial System for Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. For this reason, we are obliged to identify our clients and to request and retain a number of documents to prove their identity. For this reason, we cannot start working on your case until we have received your VAT number or company number for companies and professionals, or a copy of your identity card for private individuals. If we establish facts that we know or suspect to be related to money laundering or terrorism, we are obliged to transmit this information to the President of the Bar. The latter decides whether or not to report the information received to the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit.
We will transfer all amounts we receive for you as soon as possible. If for some reason this is not immediately possible, we will inform you of the receipt and the reason why we cannot transfer the amount yet. We will also promptly transfer to third parties any funds we receive from you on your behalf. We may offset amounts received on our third-party account against outstanding invoices, interest, damage clauses and VAT and will, of course, always inform you.
All lawyers are insured for their professional liability with Amlin Europe NV, Koning Albert II laan 9, 1210 BRUSSEL, via Van Breda Risk & Benefits, under policy number LXX034899. The cover of this insurance agreement applies to the consequences of acts committed throughout the world, for activities performed by the insured lawyers from their offices in Belgium. However, the following are not insured: claims brought against the insured lawyers in the USA or Canada, or under the laws or jurisdiction of the USA or Canada. You can request the insurance certificate of all our lawyers by email at info@siriuslegal.be. Our liability to you as a client and to third parties is in all circumstances limited to the amount that the professional liability insurer will pay out in the event of damage. We shall not be liable for the services of third parties on whom we rely, beyond or in excess of the amount that the professional liability insurer will pay out in a claim. We therefore decline any liability for the franchise and any higher damages.
We expressly reserve the right to immediately and fully suspend any intervention in your case(s) if you are paying our invoices late. In this case, we shall not be liable for any damage you may suffer as a result.
All rights in relation to the intellectual achievements that we develop or use in the performance of the task entrusted to us, including advice, working methods, contracts, drafts of procedural documents, shall be held exclusively by Sirius Legal or the third parties it has called upon. Except with our express prior and written consent, you are prohibited from distributing, publishing or exploiting the intellectual achievements or recordings thereof in any way whatsoever.
If you, as a private individual, use our online services or entrust us with your file remotely by e-mail or telephone, you have a right of withdrawal of 14 days from the day after the conclusion of the contract. By accepting our offer, you expressly agree that we may commence execution of the contract and do not need to wait for the 14-day withdrawal period. In this case, you may still revoke the agreement as long as our services have not yet been fully provided. However, in that case, you must pay a proportional amount for the services already delivered. You can revoke the agreement by sending an e-mail or completed form to info@siriuslegal.be within the 14-day period. As a company or professional, you have no right of withdrawal. Once your order has been placed, the associated fee is irrevocably payable.
You are entitled to terminate our cooperation at any time without any compensation. We, too, can terminate our cooperation with you at any time. In case of termination of the agreement, the already performed costs and fees, and if the fee is calculated as a fixed price or proportionally, the pro rata fee for the already performed services, remain due. Upon first request, we will transfer your file to your new lawyer.
If you have a complaint, you can always contact us at info@siriuslegal.be or by telephone at +32 2 721 13 00. In the event of a dispute between yourself and us, you can refer to the competent body at the Bar Association. If you wish, you can contact the Ombudsman Service for Consumer Disputes relating to the Legal Profession (https://oca.ligeca.be/en/), in accordance with the provisions of Book XVI Code of Economic Law. Any agreement between you and us is subject to Belgian law (without this leading to any referral to another legal system via international private law). In case of any legal disputes, only the courts of the district of Antwerp, section Mechelen are competent.
