Terms & Conditions

At Brooke-Taylor & Co we provide advice on scientific, technical and regulatory affairs. We are not lawyers and do not provide legal services or give legal advice.

In general, we issue an interim bill at the end of each month while work is in progress, and a final bill on completion of a matter. Work will be billed at our prevailing standard rate, except where an alternative schedule of charges is agreed in advance of the commencement of the work. All bills are payable within 14 days of their receipt unless otherwise agreed in advance. Amounts outstanding after 30 days may be subject to an interest charge.

Our standard costs consist of:

• Professional charges relating to the amount of time spent by professional staff in attending to your matter(s), and
• Disbursements, which we will either charge you, or pass on to you for payment, consist of out-of-pocket expenses that we may need to incur. These could  include such things as library or search fees, application fees, agents’ fees, travel and accommodation expenses, the fees and disbursements for lawyers, courier, express post, filing fees, where relevant.

We do NOT charge you for administrative or service charges such as photocopying, printing, outgoing facsimiles, local, telephone calls or basic postage.

GST

All costs in relation to our professional charges referred to in this agreement are exclusive of GST and represent the GST exclusive supply price. If GST is payable in relation to the supply of our consultancy services, the amount of the GST (currently 10%) will be added to the GST exclusive supply price in our bill for those services, and is payable by you within 7 days of your receipt of the bill. In relation to disbursements that we incur and have paid ourselves, the cost we pass on to you represents the GST exclusive supply price.In relation to disbursements that we incur and have paid as your agent, the cost we pass on to you represents the GST inclusive supply price. We will supply you with a tax invoice for the amount of GST, either at the same time as we issue you with our bill or as part of that bill. The tax invoice will contain the particulars required by law. If GST is not added to any bill which we issue to you and it is subsequently determined by us that an amount in respect of GST is in fact payable to the Australian Taxation Office in respect of that bill, then you will pay us that amount.

Avoiding conflicts of interest

We may consult for clients that may compete with or, more rarely, may even be involved in business with you. Naturally, we will continue to consult those clients or new clients only in matters that are not substantially related to the work that we are engaged to perform for you.

We will not disclose or use any confidential information you provide to us in the course of our working for you, except where that is required in the course of our acting for you or under compulsion of law.