Gide is a premier international law firm and the first to have originated in France. Founded in Paris in 1920, the firm now operates from 14 offices throughout the world. It has 600 lawyers, drawn from 35 different nationalities. The size and prominence of our firm unfortunately sometimes attracts the attention of unscrupulous individuals who falsely claim to work for Gide and/or use our firm's name or that of our lawyers to advance fraudulent schemes against innocent third parties.

Scams and other security risks are rampant on the Internet, and we recommend that you take steps to protect yourself and the security of your information. We routinely report such abuses to law enforcement agencies.

Among the various recent misrepresentations referencing Gide: individuals falsely claiming to be Gide lawyers and who (i) require the urgent transfer of funds or the facilitation of such transfer on a confidential basis for the acquisition of one or more companies (particularly in Asia); (ii) require information (in particular ID documentation) to draft a confidentiality agreement as part of such acquisition operations. This is not an exhaustive list of scams, as new ones are being devised by criminals on a daily basis.

Please note that our lawyers never conduct firm business via non-secure or mainstream web-based email accounts such as gmail.com, hotmail.com or yahoo.com, or personal email addresses. Neither do they conduct firm business using text messages or instant messaging services.

To report a potential e-mail, telephone or other scam, we recommend that you contact the relevant police or government authorities in your jurisdiction. For example, in France, you can file reports with the police station that is locally competent, or file a complaint with the Paris Public Prosecutor, which has been informed by Gide of these types of scams. Various cybercrime reporting websites in France (https://www.cybermalveillance.gouv.fr) and in the European Union can be found via Europol.

Moreover, if you receive a threatening telephone call from someone claiming to be from Gide, we suggest that you:

• attempt to independently verify the legitimacy of the caller’s identity, including for example by contacting our firm's Secretary-General;
• do not send the caller any money;
• do not give the caller any personal or financial information about yourself, such as your bank account details or credit card numbers;
• report the fraudulent call to the police or other relevant authorities.

In addition, if you receive a suspicious email referencing our firm or appearing to be from our firm (e.g. from a "spoofed" Gide email address that does not end in "@gide.com"), we suggest that you:

• do not open or click on any links contained in the email;
• do not open or download any attachments to the email;
• do not respond to the email in any way or provide any personal or confidential information in reply to the email;
• do not send any money in response to the email;
• if applicable, forward the suspicious email to your organisation’s IT department and ask that they inspect the message to determine its legitimacy;
• permanently delete the message from your email account.

Should you have any questions about the security of your computer or suspect that the security of your computer has been compromised, we recommend that you quickly contact your IT support team, computer manufacturer or Internet service provider and report any suspicious incident.

Gide is not involved in any of the scams listed above, or in any other scams. Consequently, neither Gide nor its lawyers or employees can accept any responsibility for the criminal conduct of a third party claiming to use the firm's name. Should you have any concerns or receive suspicious communications that reference Gide, please contact our Secretary-General on the telephone number or email address shown below.

FRÉDÉRIQUE MISK-MALHER
Chief Operating Officer
GIDE LOYRETTE NOUEL A.A.R.P.I.
22 cours Albert Ier | 75008 Paris
T +33 (0)1 40 75 26 77
frederique.miskmalher@gide.com