Status of the services
Lexaero is a legal and technology consultancy. It is not a law firm, and Ali Fouad is not admitted to the bar as an advocaat and is not a civil-law notary.
A company that works in more than one country rarely has a question that belongs to one law, or to law alone. A customer's data questionnaire is also a question about the systems the company runs; a filing calendar is also a workflow; a new regime is a set of controls as much as a set of rules. Lexaero is built for that: one adviser scopes the matter, knows the systems the company actually uses, and delivers the answer as something the company can implement, across every border it works over. The same person does the work and answers for it, at a fee fixed before it starts.
Lexaero advises, drafts and reviews documents, carries out assessments, prepares filings and acts as authorised representative where a company appoints it. It does not represent clients in court proceedings, does not execute notarial deeds, and does not carry out acts that the law of a country reserves to lawyers admitted there. Where a matter requires an advocaat, a notary, a registered representative or a lawyer admitted in another country, Lexaero says so and works with one.
Lexaero works from the Netherlands for companies wherever they operate: in the European Union, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and beyond. Its field is the cross-border matter itself: which rules apply when a company works in more than one country, how those regimes fit together, and what the company must do in each place. Where a country reserves advice on its national law, or the drafting of documents under it, to lawyers admitted there, that part of a matter is done by a locally admitted lawyer whom the client engages, with Lexaero keeping the whole in one hand.
Information a client shares with Lexaero is kept confidential under the engagement agreement. It is not protected by the legal professional privilege that applies to communications with a lawyer admitted to the bar. Lexaero can therefore be required to give evidence or to hand over documents to a court, a regulator or an investigating authority. Where that matters, for example in a dispute or an investigation, a lawyer should be engaged first.
Lexaero does not broker investments, does not give investment or tax advice, and is not licensed or supervised under the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (Wft). It does not provide directors or a registered address for client companies and is not a trust office. For some services, such as help with setting up a company or with the purchase or sale of shares, the Dutch anti-money-laundering act (Wwft) requires Lexaero to identify the client and its beneficial owners before starting work.
Services are provided from the Netherlands under a written engagement agreement, which sets the scope, the fee and the limits of liability and is governed by Dutch law. Lexaero works for companies and other organisations acting in the course of business. It does not act for consumers.
This website
The website gives general information. The briefings state the law as Lexaero understood it on their review date, and the notes under "Your situation" on the home page and on the Situations pages give a first orientation only. Neither is legal advice on your circumstances, and neither replaces an assessment of the facts.
Using the website or sending a message does not create a client relationship. One begins only when Lexaero has confirmed an engagement in writing.
Lexaero takes care that what it publishes is accurate, and corrects errors it is told about. To the extent the law allows, it accepts no liability for loss arising from reliance on the website alone.
The text and design of the website belong to Lexaero. Short quotation with attribution is welcome. The photographs and the film were generated with AI and do not show real places or real people, and the film's narration is an AI-generated voice. The film describes what the work aims at; it does not promise a result.
Links to other websites are given for reference. Lexaero is not responsible for their content.
The website and these terms are governed by Dutch law. Disputes are for the competent court in The Hague, unless mandatory law gives you another forum.
Privacy statement
This statement covers the website lexaero.nl, correspondence with Lexaero, and the business contact details Lexaero holds. It gives the information required by the GDPR and, where it applies, by the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). The controller is Ali Fouad, trading as Lexaero, established in The Hague, the Netherlands. Questions and requests go to contact@lexaero.nl.
1. This website
The website sets no cookies and uses no analytics, tracking pixels or embedded content from other sites. Fonts, images and the film are served from the site's own domain. The route you set, the situations you tick and a message you have started are kept in your browser's session storage, not in a cookie, so that they follow you from page to page. They are removed when the message is sent, your browser discards them when the tab is closed, and they reach nobody unless you send the form.
When you open a page, the hosting provider records technical data in its server logs: your IP address, the date and time, the page requested, your browser type and, where your browser sends it, the page you came from. Lexaero uses this only to deliver the site and keep it secure, on the basis of its legitimate interest in doing so (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). Log entries are deleted after 30 days at most.
2. The contact form and email
The contact form asks for your name, your email address and your message, and optionally your company. The form is sent over an encrypted connection to the website's server, which forwards it by email to Lexaero's mailbox. The website stores no copy. The hosting provider's mail server keeps a delivery record (time, sender and recipient address) in its logs. If delivery fails, the message is returned to a Lexaero mailbox. A hidden field, a timing check and a cap on the number of messages per hour filter out automated submissions, and no third-party anti-spam service is involved.
Whether you use the form or write by email, Lexaero uses your details and what you write to answer you and, where you ask for one, to prepare a proposal. You are not obliged to provide anything, but without contact details Lexaero cannot reply.
The legal basis is the steps taken at your request before entering into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR), or otherwise Lexaero's legitimate interest in answering business correspondence (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Please do not send confidential information, or sensitive personal data about yourself or others, in a first message. Correspondence that does not lead to an engagement is deleted 12 months after the last contact.
3. When Lexaero writes to you first
Lexaero sometimes contacts a company it believes it can help. It sends a first message by email only where the law that applies to the recipient allows one without prior consent, for example to an address the company has published for receiving business proposals. Otherwise it writes by post or through a professional network's own messaging. For that purpose it holds the name, role and business contact details of the person concerned, taken from the company's own website, public registers and professional networking profiles. Every message says who Lexaero is, where the details came from and how to object.
The legal basis is Lexaero's legitimate interest in offering its services to businesses for which they are relevant (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object at any time, without giving a reason, by replying to the message. Lexaero then stops, and keeps only your address on a do-not-contact list for as long as it carries out outreach.
If there is no reply, the details are deleted 12 months after the last message.
4. Clients
For clients, Lexaero keeps the contract, correspondence, deliverables and invoices for the duration of the engagement and for seven years after it ends. It does so to perform the contract with the client, which for the individuals involved rests on Lexaero's legitimate interest in carrying out its engagements (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR) and, where the client is an individual, on Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. It also does so to meet the seven-year retention duty of Dutch tax law (Article 6(1)(c) GDPR) and to be able to answer questions or claims about its work (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). Where the Wwft applies, Lexaero also keeps the identification records the Act requires for five years after the engagement ends.
Personal data that a client entrusts to Lexaero in the course of an engagement is handled under the terms of that engagement, including a data-processing agreement where Lexaero acts as processor.
5. Who receives the data
Lexaero does not sell personal data or share it for anyone else's marketing. It uses service providers that process data on its behalf, each under a data-processing agreement. They include:
- Microsoft, for email and documents (Microsoft 365)
- TransIP B.V., Leiden, the Netherlands, which hosts this website
Data may also be disclosed where the law requires it, for example to the Dutch tax authorities.
6. Where the data is held
Lexaero is established in the Netherlands and keeps its data with providers that store it in the European Economic Area. Where a provider can access or process data from another country, the transfer rests on an adequacy decision where one applies, at present the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for Microsoft's services, and otherwise on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. A copy of the clauses is available on request.
7. Your rights
You can ask Lexaero for access to the personal data it holds about you, and for its correction, deletion, restriction or transfer. You can object to processing that rests on legitimate interest. An objection to being contacted about Lexaero's services is always honoured. Write to contact@lexaero.nl. You will receive an answer within one month.
Lexaero makes no decisions about you by automated means and does not build profiles.
If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) or to the supervisory authority where you live. People in Switzerland can turn to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).
8. Changes
When this page changes, the version number and date at the top change with it. Earlier versions are available on request.