Legal Notice
Important Legal Information
www.smithson.co.uk (this "Site") is a website operated by Fundsmith LLP ("Fundsmith"), as investment manager for and on behalf of Smithson Investment Trust plc ("we", "our", "us", "Smithson"). We are registered in England and Wales under company number 11517636 and with registered office at 6th Floor, 125 London Wall, London, England, EC2Y 5AS, United Kingdom. Fundsmith is registered in England and Wales under company number OC354233 and has its registered office at 33 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PW, United Kingdom.
To contact us, please email IR@fundsmith.co.uk.
ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS OF THIS NOTICE
This legal notice ("Notice") governs the use of this Site. By using this Site, you confirm that you accept the terms of this Notice and agree to comply with them. If you do not agree to this Notice, you must not use this Site.
You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access this Site through your internet connection are aware of these terms and other applicable terms and/or policies, and that they comply with them.
OTHER TERMS APPLICABLE TO USE OF THIS SITE
This Notice refers to the following additional policies available on this Site, which also apply to your use of this Site:
- Smithson's Privacy Notice, which sets out the terms on which we process any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us; and
- Smithson's Cookie Policy, which sets out information about the cookies on this Site.
By using this Site, you also accept the terms of these policies.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
This Site is directed at persons in the United Kingdom. The products and services mentioned on this Site are subject to legal and regulatory requirements in various jurisdictions and may not be available in all jurisdictions. The information on this Site does not constitute an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any investments or to engage in any investment activity in any jurisdiction where such activity would be contrary to local law or regulation. Persons in jurisdictions where these activities are restricted or prohibited must not access or use this Site. It is your responsibility to be aware of and comply with any relevant laws or regulations applicable in your jurisdiction.
For the avoidance of doubt, citizens or residents of the United States of America (the “US”) are not permitted to access this Site under US law and accordingly citizens or residents of the US must not access or use this Site. The products and services on this Site do not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the US. Any securities referred to on this Site have not been and will not be registered under the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), or under the securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction of the US and may not be offered, sold, taken up, resold, transferred or delivered, directly or indirectly, in or into the US except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act and in compliance with any applicable securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction of the US.
There will be no public offer of securities in the US. By accessing this Site you confirm that you are not a "US Person" (within the meaning of Regulation S under the Securities Act) and are located outside the US.
WEBSITE CONTENTS AND CHANGES TO INFORMATION
The content of this Site is provided by us and Fundsmith. We and Fundsmith have taken all reasonable care to ensure that information which the relevant entity has provided on this Site is accurate and complete at the date of its publication, however neither can guarantee the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of such information. The information contained on this Site is subject to change at any time, without notice. The opinions expressed on this Site are, unless expressly attributed to a third party, ours or those of Fundsmith (as the case may be) and they are subject to change without notice. Where it is stated that the content included on this Site has been created or approved by Fundsmith, such content is the sole responsibility of Fundsmith. We cannot accept any responsibility for such content and we exclude all liability in respect of it.
WEBSITE ACCESS AND AVAILABILITY
Access to this Site is permitted for guests and registered users on a temporary basis.
We reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service provided by this Site at any time. We do not accept responsibility as to the operation, functionality or availability of this Site, or any content on it, or warrant that the use of this Site will be free from delay, interruption, interception or error.
We may restrict access to some parts of this Site to users who are registered users. If you are a registered user and you choose or are provided with a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures you must treat such information as confidential and you should not disclose it to any third party. We reserve the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated to you by us, at any time if necessary to protect the security of this Site or if, in our reasonable opinion, you fail to comply with the provisions of this Notice.
If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us at IR@fundsmith.co.uk.
USE OF THIS SITE
You must not use this Site in any way that causes, or may cause damage to us or any of our business partners, Fundsmith or any of its business partners or this Site (including its availability or accessibility).
In addition, you must not use this Site:
- in any way which is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful;
- in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful purpose or activity;
- to conduct any systematic or automated data collection activities (including without limitation scraping, data mining, data extraction and data harvesting) without our express written consent;
- for any automated analytical technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form to generate information or develop, train, fine-tune or validate AI systems or models which includes but is not limited to patterns, trends and correlations;
- to transmit or send unsolicited commercial communications;
- for any purposes related to marketing without our express written consent; or
- in any way which we or Fundsmith would, in our or their (as applicable) reasonable opinion, consider to be unacceptable
In addition, you must not introduce to this Site any spyware, computer virus, Trojan horse, worm, keystroke logger, rootkit or other malicious or technologically harmful computer software or otherwise use this Site to copy, store, host, transmit, send, use, publish or distribute any material which consists of (or is linked to) any spyware, computer virus, Trojan horse, worm, keystroke logger, rootkit or other malicious or technologically harmful computer software.
You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to this Site, the server on which this Site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to this Site. You must not attack this Site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching the terms of this section, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We may report any breach of this provision to the relevant authorities and may cooperate with them in any investigation, including by disclosing your identity.
We will take reasonable precautions to ensure the security of this Site. However, we do not guarantee that our Site will be secure or free from attacks, bugs or viruses. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial of service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other material due to your use of this Site or to your downloading material posted on it.
INFORMATION ABOUT SMITHSON
You may obtain copies of the Smithson prospectus, the latest Investor Disclosure document, latest key information document and the annual and interim report and accounts issued by us from time to time free of charge by contacting us at 6th Floor, 125 London Wall, London, England, EC2Y 5AS or these can be downloaded directly from this Site.
Neither we nor Fundsmith provide financial, investment, tax or other advice. If you are unsure as to whether an investment in Smithson is suitable for you, you should seek your own professional advice.
RISK WARNINGS
It should not be assumed that an investment in Smithson will be profitable. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The value of investments and the income from them may fall as well as rise, may be affected by changes in rates of exchange, and you may not get back the amount of your original investment. The Smithson prospectus contains further information in relation to the potential risks of investing in Smithson.
DATA PROTECTION AND PRIVACY
We are committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of your personal information in accordance with current data protection legislation as set out in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Policy. Please refer to the detailed information included in the links to these policies at the bottom of each page on this Site for more information.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights contained within this Site and in the material published on it. These works are protected by copyright laws. All such rights are reserved and your use of such materials are subject to the restrictions set out in this Notice.
You may view, download or print out a hard copy of pages from this Site or the material made available on it for your personal reference. However you must not:
- sell, rent or sub-license material from this Site, reproduce, duplicate, make any copy of, or otherwise exploit the material on this Site available for public or commercial use without our prior written consent;
- modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded from this Site in any way;
- and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text; or
- redistribute material from this Site except for content specifically and expressly made available for redistribution. Where content is specifically made available for redistribution, it may only be redistributed within your organisation, or subject to such terms as may from time to time be imposed in relation to such content.
If you print off, copy or download any part of this Site in breach of this Notice then you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made and we may terminate your right to use this Site immediately.
"Smithson" and "Fundsmith" are the registered trade marks of Fundsmith. You are not permitted to use these trade marks (or any other Fundsmith trade mark) without Fundsmith's approval.
LINKS TO THIS SITE
You may link to the home page of this Site, provided that you do so in a way which is fair, legal and does not damage or take advantage of our reputation or the reputation of Fundsmith, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part or the part of Fundsmith, without our or Fundsmith's prior written consent (as applicable). You must not establish a link from a website that is not owned by you. This Site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of this Site other than the home page.
Smithson and Fundsmith reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.
LINKS FROM THIS SITE
Where this Site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of such third party sites or resources and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise to you from your use of them. You access such third party sites and resources at your own risk. Such third party sites and resources will have their own terms and conditions of use, and your use of them and your relationship with their owners and/or operators will be governed by such terms and conditions.
TERMINATION
We have the right to immediately terminate your access to this Site at any time on giving notice to you and in any event if you commit any breach of the terms of this Notice. In addition, we may, in the event that you breach these terms, block computers or other devices using your IP address from accessing this Site or contact your internet service provider to request that they block your access to this Site and/or bring court proceedings against you. We will have no liability to you for such termination or action. In the event that your access to this Site is terminated, the remaining provisions of this Notice will continue to apply.
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
Save as provided below, neither we nor Fundsmith, any of our or Fundsmith's members, directors, officers or employees, nor any third party vendor, will be liable or have any responsibility of any kind for any loss or damage (whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise) that you incur:
- in the event of any failure or interruption of this Site;
- as a result of the act or omission of any other party involved in making this Site or the data or content contained in it that is available to you; or
- from any other cause relating to your access to, inability to access, or use of this Site or the materials contained on this Site,
whether or not the circumstances giving rise to such cause may have been within our or Fundsmith's control, or the control of any vendor providing software, services, or similar support.
Neither we nor Fundsmith will be liable to you for any loss or damage (whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise) that you incur from your use of or reliance on any content displayed on our Site.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law we and Fundsmith exclude all representations, warranties and conditions relating to this Site and the use of this Site (including, without limitation, any warranties implied by law of satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and/or the use of reasonable care and skill). Nothing in this Notice excludes or restricts any duty or liability that Fundsmith has under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended from time to time), the rules of the Financial Conduct Authority or the regulatory system as defined in FCA's Rules.
Nothing in this Notice shall restrict or exclude any liability that we have or Fundsmith has to any party that cannot be excluded by law, including for (a) death or personal injury resulting from negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
INDEMNITY
You shall indemnify us from and against all actions, claims, proceedings, costs and damages (including any damages or compensation paid by us on the advice of our legal advisors to compromise or settle any claim) and all legal costs or expenses arising out of your use of this Site and any breach by you of any terms and conditions contained in this Notice.
AMENDMENTS TO THESE TERMS
We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this Notice. Such revised terms will apply to the use of this Site from the date of the publication of the revised terms on this Site.
You are expected to check this Notice from time to time to take note of any changes to these terms. Your continued use of this Site will be deemed to constitute your acceptance of any revised terms. If you do not agree with any changes we make to the terms of this Notice, you must not continue to use this Site.
GOVERNING LAW & OTHER LEGAL PROVISIONS
This Notice shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales without regard to conflicts of law principles. The courts of England and Wales will have the exclusive jurisdiction over any claim arising from or related to this Site. No failure of either party to enforce any of its rights under this Notice will act as a waiver of such rights. If any portion of any provision of this Notice is found invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the remaining provisions of this Notice shall remain in full force and effect.
Please see documents for anti-bribery and prevention of tax-evasion policies.