General Conditions

1. These general conditions apply to our provision of advice or services concerning any commission we have received from you. Every commission concerning which we provide you with our services is a commission in the sense of these general conditions. 2. References to "we", "us" or "our" are to be understood as Kwint BV, set up in accordance with Belgian law, having its seat in 9000 Ghent, Brandweerstraat 19B/002 and with company number 0628.785.870. 3. Our advice is based on the relevant legislation, jurisdiction and uses and practices applicable at the time our advice is given. Later changes of the laws or practices may affect the conclusions of such advice. 4. In the course of our services we may submit drafts to you for your control. You may not rely on a draft until its contents are completed and its final character has been confirmed in writing. 5. If in our judgement external legal advisors are to be consulted we will choose and appoint such advisors with the utmost care. Unless otherwise agreed you will be directly responsible for paying their fees and costs. We are not responsible for the actions, errors or omissions of such advisors. 6. Unless otherwise agreed our fee for professional services will be determined on the basis of an hour rate which applies to the time spent on the commission, including travelling time. 7. External costs incurred in the course of the execution of your commission are to be paid by you, as well as the costs of external advisors appointed with your permission who provide services to you. 8. Our invoices are to be paid within 30 days. We reserve the right to claim damages of 10% and interests (calculated on a daily basis at the interest rate mentioned in the law concerning arrears of payment in trade transactions, with a minimum of 10%) to be calculated on invoices that are not paid within this term. 9. Unless you give us other instructions, we will assume that you agree to the practice of communicating with you and your other advisors via email. This also includes communication concerning confidential information. Please take note of the fact that email communication is never totally secure or free of error. 10. We make use of software to diminish the risk of viruses entering our system. Since there is a risk that legitimate communication is filtered you may not assume that every email sent by you is also automatically received by us. You are therefore always to confirm important messages by telephone, fax or in any other way, to ensure that we in fact receive the information. We are not responsible for any failures of our software nor for any other incident which is reasonably outside our control. 11. If we are responsible for loss or damage (including interests and costs) incurred by you and related to our commission, and another party (without prejudice to article 12) is equally responsible for the same loss or damage (or should this person be responsible when he has concluded a contractual agreement with you to fulfil his obligations with the customary care which you can reasonably expect in the circumstances), the damages owed by us to you over the loss or damage are to be diminished in accordance with the extent of the responsibility of the third party for the loss or damage. 12. In determining the existence and the extent of the responsibility of such third parties for the loss or damage in the sense of article 11 no account is taken of (i) agreements or regulations which restrict the amount of the damages to be paid; (ii) factual or possible impediments to the reclaim of loss or damage from such persons, whether through an amicable agreement, a restriction of the claim, difficulties in the execution or for any other reason. 13. Our responsibility, including our individual responsibility which is related to or which results from it, is in any case limited to the amount of the coverage under the applicable professional responsibility insurance taken out by the bar of Ghent, which currently is 1,250,000 EUR. 14. The execution of the commission entrusted to us entails rights and obligations, which exist solely between you and us, and no one may refer to the advice we give to you, nor is any other party to be protected by our obligations and services to you, nor may any other party enforce any aspect of our commission by means of applicable laws. 15. Belgian law is applicable to our agreement and for the settlement of disputes concerning this agreement the courts of Ghent will be solely competent.