In the absence of a separately executed transaction document (e.g., Engagement Letter), our relationship with our clients is governed exclusively by the following terms and conditions. By instructing us to work on a particular matter, you confirm that you have read, understood and accepted these terms and conditions.
In the context of these terms and conditions, the pronouns "I/me" and "we/us" shall be deemed interchangeable and shall refer to either the MHD Consulting Ltd., or Caglar Kokturk Akoymak, as appropriate to the particular circumstances in which they are used.
1. About MHD Consulting Ltd.
1.1 MHD Consulting Ltd. (“Company”) is a private company limited by shares, incorporated in the UK, and registered before Companies House with number 13712253. The Company’s registered address is Unit 3B Berol House, 25 Ashley Road, London, Middlesex, N17 9LJ, United Kingdom, and the official website is https://mhd-consulting.co.uk/.
1.2 MHD Consulting Ltd. is not a law firm or an SRA-authorized body.
1.3 All services provided under these terms and conditions will be invoiced through MHD Consulting Ltd.
2. About the founder
2.1 I, Caglar Kokturk Akoymak, am the sole shareholder and director of MHD Consulting Ltd., a registered lawyer (Attorney-at-Law) of the Istanbul Bar Association (#28314), and a Registered Foreign Lawyer (RFL) of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (#7002861).
2.2 Based on my RFL status, I’m entitled to practise the law of my home jurisdiction (Turkish law), as well as to advise on English and Welsh law, except for carrying out reserved legal activities as defined by the Legal Services Act 2007, through MHD Consulting Ltd. Besides, I am personally subject to SRA Standards and Regulations.
2.3 In addition to the unreserved legal activities, I also provide management consultancy and business support services, which may fall outside SRA’s regulatory framework. Should your instructions be related to a non-legal service of such nature, they will be performed out of the scope of my legal practising certificates.
3. Scope of work
3.1 What we will do. We will provide you with legal/management advisory services based on your instructions, which will be limited to the scope you defined.
3.2 What we will not do. Other than as expressly set out above or agreed by us in writing, we will not undertake any other work for you, including but not limited to:
· Providing reserved legal services, as defined by the Legal Services Act 2007. If your instructions to us at any point relate to a reserved legal activity, I will not be entitled or able to render the required service and inform you beforehand.
· Providing services within the scope of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (as amended) (MLRs).
· Advising you on the financial or tax aspects of the matter or on your wider tax or financial interests. You agree that you will take your own independent tax and financial advice on the matter, where required, and will inform us if it affects our work on the matter.
· Advising you on the law of jurisdictions outside of England and Wales, except for the laws of Türkiye.
· Giving you accounting or commercial advice (including on the viability and prudence of this matter), even if a relevant issue arises during the course of our work together. You may wish to seek separate specialist advice on these matters.
· Reminding you of any dates or deadlines, or advising you on any legal developments, occurring after the end of our engagement.
3.3 Additional work means additional charges.Our charges (fees, disbursements and expenses) are based on the scope of work defined by you and may be agreed on with you verbally or in a transaction document (e.g., Engagement Letter). If you instruct us to carry out additional work, you will incur additional charges. You may instruct us to provide additional services, which may be related or unrelated to the initial matter or scope. Such additional services shall also be governed by the terms and conditions set out herein. Where possible, we will provide you with an estimate of our anticipated charges for any additional work before performing. In case of any conflict between the terms and conditions set out herein and that of a transaction document we may enter into, the terms and conditions of the particular transaction document shall take precedence.
4. How long will it take?
We shall provide you with an estimate of the time frames that we will endeavour to render our services each time we receive an instruction from you. These estimates would be based on the following assumptions:
· You:
o provide us with clear, timely and consistent instructions;
o respond fully, frankly and quickly to our requests for information; and
o co-operate with us and those we instruct on your behalf.
· The information that you provide to us is full and accurate, to the best of your knowledge and belief.
· You comply with your obligations to us, as set out in this document and its enclosures, and respect our decision not to do something for you because it would breach our legal, professional or regulatory duties.
· You provide us with any required sums on account of costs and pay our invoices on receipt.
· The scope of our instructions does not change.
· The matter proceeds smoothly with no unanticipated complications, disputes or conflicts of interest.
5. Your point of contact
5.1 I or my business associates holding similar expertise and experiences will be working on your matters, at an hourly charging rate of £300 (three hundred British Sterling), excluding VAT, if not agreed otherwise.
6. Our fees, disbursements and expenses
6.1 How we calculate our fees. Our fees for this matter, and for any additional work, will be charged on a time-spent basis. Any capped fee arrangements must be separately agreed upon. If the assumptions (as set out in these terms and conditions) on which the capped fee is based prove incorrect, we may increase our capped fee or switch to charging you on a time-spent basis. If we switch to charging on a time-spent basis, we will provide you with an estimate of our fees to complete the matter.
6.2 Fees on a time-spent basis. When calculating our fees on a time-spent basis:
(a) Six-minute units. We calculate the time we spend on a matter in six-minute units (an hour is broken down into ten units, each of which is six minutes). We charge this time at the hourly rate for the person doing the work. Where a task (such as writing a short or standard letter or email or making a phone call) takes less than six minutes of a person's time, the time spent is rounded up to six minutes.
(b) Increases in hourly rates. We may increase our hourly rates, for example, at the start of a new year. We may also increase our rates if your instructions change, for example, if the matter we are working on for you becomes more urgent. We will give you advance notice of any increases.
(c) Estimates are not binding. Any estimate of the total charges (fees, disbursements and expenses) for dealing with your matter or reaching a certain stage in it, as well as estimates or automated quotes provided on our website, are not binding, unless otherwise stated. We may update estimates as a matter progresses and you must pay all our charges even if they exceed any estimate.
6.3 Disbursements, expenses and VAT. All hourly rates, estimates we quote to you, are exclusive of the following, which you must pay in addition, where applicable:
(a) Disbursements. We may pay official fees or carry out searches for you. You will be responsible for associated charges and costs (disbursements).
(b) Expenses. In addition to our fees, we charge you our expenses which may include the costs of:
(i) travel;
(ii) document production (scanning, photocopying and binding);
(iii) payment transfers;
(iv) and other work expenses related to your matter.
(c) VAT. If required by the applicable laws, we may charge you VAT on our fees and, where applicable, on disbursements and expenses, unless expressly stated otherwise.
7. Invoicing and payment
7.1 Payment term. Our invoices are payable within 7 days unless otherwise stated in the invoice.
7.2 Suspension or termination for non-payment.If you do not pay our invoices on time, we can stop work until you pay, or stop working for you altogether and retain your documents until you pay in full. If you are having difficulty paying, please contact us as soon as possible to discuss this.
8. Who we advise and your rights to terminate
8.1 Who we advise. We will be advising either you alone, or the company you designate, or both of you jointly (“You”) based on your preference. You are our client, these terms and conditions govern our relationship with you, and our advice is intended solely for you. We do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than you and you will remain responsible for payment of our invoices. Where we have more than one client in a matter, we can require any of those persons to pay our invoices in full (this is called joint and several liability).
8.2 Your rights to terminate your instructions.You may terminate your instructions to us at any time by telling us in writing. You must pay all charges (fees, disbursements and expenses) incurred up to the point of termination, as well as any necessary charges incurred after termination. We can retain your documents until you pay.
8.3 Your consumer right to cancel our agreement. If you begin instructing us from outside our offices when we meet remotely by phone or email or audio/video call, you have a legal right to cancel our agreement and receive a refund of any sums you have paid us in advance. Your right to cancel expires 14 days after our agreement is made. If you request us to start work during that period, you will have to pay us for any work we do up until you cancel. Work that we start at your request during the cancellation period cannot be cancelled once completed, even if the cancellation period is still running.
9. Who can rely on our advice and who we are authorised to deal with
9.1 We can rely on instructions from you only.We may give advice and information to, and act on instructions from you without the need to copy that advice to, or to confirm those instructions with, the other(s). For organisations, rather than individuals, we can ask for a formal resolution confirming who can instruct us.
9.2 Adding individuals we can deal with. You can let us know in writing that we are authorised to deal with someone else on your behalf. Unless you tell us otherwise, you agree that when you notify us of anyone in this way:
· We can assume that they have your full authority to instruct us on this matter.
· We may discuss all aspects of the matter with them.
· We may act on any instructions from them.
10. Communicating with us
10.1 How to contact. Contact details are provided hereunder:
Mrs. Caglar Kokturk Akoymak
Mobile : +44 7341 377400
Email : caglar.kokturk@mhd-consulting.co.uk
10.2 We will communicate with you by email and telephone. Unless there are documents that we need to send to you in hard copy, or reasons to meet with you in person, we will communicate with you by email and telephone. You agree to do the same and acknowledge that there are inherent risks with email communication and that we are not responsible for loss or damage caused by email use, provided we have taken reasonable security measures. If you prefer another method of communication, please let us know as soon as possible.
10.3 Please verify the emailed payment instructions with us. If you are told about any change in our bank details by email, then, even if the email appears to come from our Company, you must call us immediately to check that the email is genuine.
11. Confidentiality
11.1 When we may use and disclose your information. We will keep any confidential information we obtain through our services confidential, but we reserve the right to use and disclose it to provide you with our services, comply with law and regulation (including by carrying out conflict of interest searches and anti-money laundering steps, where applicable), or otherwise with your consent.
12. Concerns and complaints
12.1 How to complain. We hope that you remain happy with the services we provide. If at any stage you have concerns or wish to make a complaint, please directly touch base with us in the first instance. If we cannot resolve your concerns or if you do not agree with our proposed resolution within a reasonable period of no later than 8 weeks, you can complain to the SRA and the Legal Ombudsman, if your concern is related to a legal service we provided.
13. How we limit our liability to you
13.1 Liabilities not excluded. Nothing in these terms and conditions limits any liability which cannot legally be limited including without limitation liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
13.2 Exclusion of indirect and consequential loss (business customers only). Subject to paragraph 13.1, if you are a business, we will not be liable to you, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), for breach of statutory duty or otherwise, arising under or in connection with our agreement for any indirect or consequential loss.
13.3 Losses we are not liable for. Subject to paragraph 13.1, we will not be liable to you, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), for breach of statutory duty or otherwise, arising under or in connection with our agreement for any loss arising as a result of:
(a) our complying with our legal and regulatory duties,
(b) circumstances beyond our reasonable control,
(c) loss or damage caused by email use, provided we have taken reasonable security measures,
(d) failure of any bank.
13.4 Caps on our liability. Our aggregate liability to you (and to any other client for whom we are instructed) is limited to the total amount of payments we received in connection with the matter that gives rise to liability unless the applicable laws require otherwise. Subject to paragraph 13.1, the cap will apply whether the liability arose in contract, tort (including negligence), for breach of statutory duty or otherwise and whether it arises under or in connection with our agreement.
14. Privacy
14.1 We may process your personal data subject to our Privacy Policy which you may view and download at https://mhd-consulting.co.uk/privacy-policy .
15. Next steps
Before we begin work on your matter, we need to confirm the identity of our clients via formal, reliable documents and sources. Please send these document(s) (as applicable).