1. When these terms apply
These terms apply when a business or other organisation engages Pattern Interrupt Consulting (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2024/596441/07) for consulting, compliance or training work. They form part of every quote or engagement letter we send you. You accept them when you accept a quote or engagement letter in writing, including by email, or when you ask us to start work.
Our quotes are valid for 60 days. If your quote or engagement letter says something different from these terms, the quote or engagement letter applies. Bookings of scope calls through our website are covered by our website terms of use.
2. Our services
We do the work described in your quote or engagement letter, with reasonable care and skill, and within the timeframes set out there. We reply to emails within two business days. Our work includes POPIA compliance reviews, AI governance, drafting policies and agreements, and training.
We advise and you decide. Compliance with POPIA and other laws remains your responsibility as the responsible party, and depends on how you put our recommendations into practice. We cannot guarantee the outcome of any complaint, investigation or decision by the Information Regulator or any other authority.
Our services do not include litigation or other work that only a practising legal practitioner may do. If your matter needs that, we will tell you and refer it to Rudi Heydenrych Attorneys and Associates, where René Mattheus practises as an attorney. That work is then done under a separate attorney engagement with that firm, on its own terms.
Advice given through a consulting engagement may not attract legal professional privilege. If you need privileged advice, for example after a security compromise that may lead to a claim or an investigation, tell us before the work starts so that it can be arranged through an attorney engagement with Rudi Heydenrych Attorneys and Associates.
3. What we need from you
- Accurate and complete information about your systems, suppliers and processing activities.
- Access to the people and documents we need, within reasonable time.
- A named contact person who can make decisions or obtain them.
We rely on the information you give us. If it is incomplete or changes, our findings may need to change, and delays on your side may affect timeframes and fees.
4. Fees and expenses
Your quote sets out whether we charge a fixed fee or an hourly rate. Our standard hourly rate is R2,400. Pattern Interrupt Consulting is not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to our fees.
We charge expenses only where your quote provides for them or you approve them in advance. For in-person work outside Cape Town, you cover reasonable travel and accommodation costs.
If you accept a quote within 60 days after a paid scope call, we deduct the scope call fee from that quote.
5. Invoicing and payment
For fixed-fee work, we invoice 50% on acceptance of the quote and the balance on delivery, unless your quote says otherwise. For hourly work, we invoice monthly. We send invoices by email, and they are payable within 7 days by electronic funds transfer.
If an invoice is overdue, we may charge interest at the rate prescribed under the Prescribed Rate of Interest Act 55 of 1975 from the due date until payment, and we may pause work until the account is paid.
6. Changes to scope
If you ask for work outside the agreed scope, or the work proves larger than the information we were given suggested, we will tell you and quote for the additional work before we do it.
7. Confidentiality
We keep your confidential information confidential and use it only for your engagement. We may disclose it only to our service providers who need it for the work and are bound by confidentiality, where the law or a court requires it, or with your written consent. These obligations continue after the engagement ends.
8. Personal information
Where we process personal information on your behalf as part of the work, you are the responsible party and we act as your operator under sections 20 and 21 of POPIA. This section is the written contract that section 21 requires. We will:
- process that personal information only with your knowledge and authorisation, and only for the engagement;
- treat it as confidential;
- maintain the security measures required by section 19 of POPIA;
- notify you immediately if we have reasonable grounds to believe it has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person, as section 21(2) requires; and
- return or delete it at the end of the engagement, except for copies that form part of our engagement records, which we keep confidential and secure for the period set out in our privacy notice, or where the law requires us to keep it.
We use the service providers listed in our privacy notice, some of which process information outside South Africa under section 72 of POPIA. Where your engagement needs a more detailed operator agreement, we will agree one with you.
Please send us only the personal information the work needs. Where we can do the work with anonymised or sample data, we will ask for that instead.
9. Use of AI tools
We may use AI tools to help with drafting and research. We limit the client personal information we enter into them to what the work needs, use them under terms that do not allow our content to be used to train the tools, and review all output ourselves before it reaches you. If you prefer that we do not use AI tools on your engagement, tell us in writing and we will not.
10. Intellectual property
Once you have paid in full, you own the final documents we prepare specifically for you, such as your policies, notices and reports. We keep ownership of our templates, methods, know-how and training materials. You may use any of these that form part of your deliverables for your own internal purposes.
We may reuse general knowledge and approaches developed during the work, with all information that identifies you or your data removed. We name you as a client in our marketing only with your written permission.
11. Meetings and training sessions
We record our video meetings with Fathom and use Zoom's meeting summary feature, so that we have an accurate record. We tell you at the start of each meeting, and we switch recording off if you ask. Recordings are handled as set out in our privacy notice.
Training materials are licensed for use by the people who attended, within your organisation. Sessions may not be recorded without our prior written consent. If you postpone a session less than 5 business days before the agreed date, we may charge for costs already incurred and preparation already done.
12. Liability: please read this section carefully
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including loss of profit, revenue or data, or for any fine or penalty imposed on you. Our total liability for any engagement is limited to the fees you paid us for that engagement.
These limits do not apply to loss caused by our fraud, wilful misconduct or gross negligence. Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or any other law that cannot be excluded by agreement.
13. Ending an engagement
Either of us may end an engagement on 14 days' written notice. Either of us may end it immediately if the other materially breaches these terms and does not remedy the breach within 7 days after written notice. You pay for work done and expenses incurred up to the end date. Deposits are credited against that work, and any unused balance is refunded within 30 days.
14. Disputes and governing law
If a disagreement arises, we will both try to resolve it in good faith within 14 days after either of us raises it in writing. If that does not resolve it, either of us may refer it to the courts. South African law governs these terms. You consent to the jurisdiction of the magistrate's court under section 45 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 32 of 1944, even if the amount in dispute exceeds its usual limits.
Our address for service of legal documents is 9 Gilquin Crescent, Hout Bay, Cape Town, 7806.
15. General
Neither of us is liable for a delay or failure caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as load-shedding, internet or platform outages, or illness, provided we tell the other promptly and resume as soon as we reasonably can.
Your accepted quote or engagement letter and these terms together form the whole agreement for the engagement. Changes are valid only if agreed in writing, including by email.
Notices under these terms may be sent by email to the addresses we use for the engagement. Neither of us may transfer an engagement to someone else without the other's written consent. If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest remains in force. We may update these terms for future engagements. The version in force when you accept a quote applies to that engagement.
Questions about these terms: rene@piconsulting.tech.