Privacy - Berkshire Partners

Berkshire Partners LLC
Stockbridge Partners LLC

PRIVACY NOTICE

Effective January 1, 2022

This Privacy Notice is provided by Berkshire Partners LLC and Stockbridge Partners LLC (together, the “Firm”, “we” and “us”) to inform you about how we process the Personal Data that we collect through the Services. This Privacy Notice does not cover or apply to our investors and limited partners. We maintain a separate Investor Privacy Notice that describes how we process the Personal Data of our investors and limited partners.

Scope and Definitions

When we use the term “Services”, we mean to refer collectively to:

The websites owned and controlled by us that link to this Privacy Notice (“Sites”);
The provision of investment and related services in the conduct and operation of our business (“Investment Services”); and
Marketing and business development activities, including events we host, social media properties we operate, and emails that we send (“Marketing Activities”).

When we use the term “Personal Data”, we mean information that reasonably can be used to identify an individual person or that reasonably relates to an identifiable person (a “Data Subject”).

The individuals whose Personal Data we collect when providing the Services include:

Directors, officers, employees, representatives and other individuals associated with the companies in which the Firm has made an investment or is considering making an investment;
Individual representatives of third party sellers, placement agents, finders, investment bankers, consultants, lawyers, accountants, advisers and other service providers, whether or not engaged by the Firm;
Directors, officers, employees and other representatives of the Firm;
Individuals applying for or inquiring about employment with us; and
Visitors to our Sites and users of any digital services we provide.

The berkshirepartners.com Site

berkshirepartners.com (“the Site”) is operated from servers in the United States.

Please be aware that the Site may contain links to other websites hosted by third parties. The Firm does not control and is not responsible for the content or privacy practices and policies of such third party websites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave the Site and to read the privacy policies of each third-party website, especially if such website collects Personal Data from you.

What Personal Data We Collect

In connection with the Services, we may collect:

identifiers (including name, ID card and passport numbers, nationality, place and date of birth, gender, picture, IP address);
contact information (including postal address and e-mail address, phone number);
family situation (including marital status, number of children);
tax status (including tax ID, tax residence);
professional and employment-related information (including resume details, work history, personnel files, pay and benefits information);
financial data (including bank account details, credit card number, money transfers, including communications regarding bank transfers, assets, investment profile, credit history, debts and expenses);
service data (including information on requests you make to provide our Services);
other background data (including information on criminal history/unlawful conduct); and
health information (including if you attend one of our events, information like dietary restrictions or disabilities or if a business we are considering investing in makes the information available to us).

How We Collect Personal Data

We may collect this Personal Data in various ways, including:

Directly from the Data Subject (for example, from visitors to our offices, visitors to our Sites, when you voluntarily submit information on our Sites, when you apply for a job, send us an email, other written correspondence or complete a form in connection with our Services);
Indirectly from other sources (for example, when we are evaluating an investment opportunity and we receive diligence information from the target that may include personal data, when service providers provide us personal data in connection with their services, or when we undertake certain investment activities during which we may receive personal data from placement agents, finders, investment bankers, consultants, lawyers, accountants, advisers and others, whether or not engaged by the Firm); and
Automatic Collection Tools. We may automatically collect certain data from Data Subjects who visit the Site that may be identifiable through the use of data collection tools (“Cookies”) on the Site that record certain usage information, such as the number and frequency of visitors to the Site. This information may include the websites that you access immediately before and after your visit to the Site and which Internet browser you are using.

How We Use Personal Data

We use Personal Data for a variety of business purposes.

When processing Personal Data in connection with our Investment Services, we generally rely on our legitimate business interests or to comply with our legal obligations. These include:

making, maintaining, managing and disposing of our investments;
conducting due diligence and evaluating business opportunities;
developing new investment opportunities;
managing, operating and growing our business, administering the Services and managing investor accounts, including through the use of third party service providers;
complying with legal or regulatory obligations, such as our obligations regarding tax withholdings;
processing and considering applications for employment, including evaluating and confirming your suitability for a position and accuracy of any information submitted;
monitoring and auditing compliance with internal policies and procedures, legal obligations and to meet requirements and orders of regulatory authorities; and
conducting risk mitigation activities to maintain and protect the safety and security of our Services, systems, premises and events, and to prevent and detect security threats, fraud or other criminal or malicious activities.

When processing Personal Data through our Sites and in connection with our Marketing Activities, we also generally rely on our legitimate business interests. These include:

communicating with Data Subjects and building relationships with Data Subjects;
conducting direct marketing activities and providing newsletters, updates, invitations and other information that we believe may be of interest to you; and
administering, improving and customizing our Sites and understanding how our Services are used.

We also may process Personal Data to perform a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, including to: (i) provide you with information regarding the Firm’s Services, (ii) assist you and answer your requests, or (iii) evaluate whether we can offer you the Firm’s Services and under what conditions.

We also may process Personal Data with your consent, but only in those cases where we make it clear to you in advance that we are relying on your consent for the processing.

How we share Personal Data for Business Purposes

We do not sell personal information obtained about you to any third parties, as the term “sell” is defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), and have not done so in the twelve (12) months preceding the effective date of this policy.

We do not disclose any personal information to anyone other than our affiliates, service providers and relevant counterparties without your consent, or as required by applicable law or regulation. This means that we may disclose the categories of personal information described above for a business purpose to other third parties, including:

Within the Firm. We share your Personal Data within the Firm for the purposes set forth above.
Service Providers. We may disclose your Personal Data to third-party service providers to provide us with services such as website hosting, professional services, including information technology services and related infrastructure, customer service, e-mail delivery, auditing and other similar services.
Affiliates. We may disclose Personal Data to our affiliates for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice, including for their marketing purposes, and to be consistent with our goal of providing the superior client service and engagement experience that our clients have come to expect from us around the world.
To Perform Investment Services. We will also disclose Personal Data to the following categories of third parties: (i) anyone involved in the matter we are working on, including lawyers, barristers, counterparties, experts, mediators, opponents, attorneys and witnesses, (ii) law enforcement, tax and regulatory agencies and bodies, (iii) insurers, and (vi) service providers such as IT and telephone services, catering, document production and postal and delivery services.
Fulfill Requests. We may disclose Personal Data to third parties in order to perform services you request or functions you initiate, including when you post information and materials publicly on message boards and forums.
Corporate Transactions or Events. We may disclose your information to a third party in connection with a corporate reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or capital, including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings.
Other Legal Reasons. In addition, we may use or disclose your Personal Data as we deem necessary or appropriate: (1) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (2) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (3) to comply with subpoenas and other legal processes; (4) to pursue available remedies or limit damages we may sustain; (5) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (6) to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of the Firm, our affiliates, you and others; and (7) to enforce our terms and conditions.

How we protect Personal Data

The Firm seeks to maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards in accordance with our information security program in order to protect your personal data from unauthorized access or use. However, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be secure at all times. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contact Us” section below.

“Do Not Track” Browser Settings

We do not currently use technology that recognizes “do not track” signals from your web browser.

How long we retain Personal Data

The Firm retains personal data pursuant to our records retention program for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer period is required or permitted under applicable law or is needed to resolve disputes or protect our legal rights.

Keeping Personal Data current

In general, we seek to ensure that we keep your Personal Data accurate and up to date. However, you are responsible for, and we kindly request that you inform us of, any changes to your Personal Data (such as a change in your contact details). To update or edit your Personal Data that we have on file, including your communication preferences, please contact us using the contact details set out under the “Contact and Complaints” heading below or by sending an e-mail to berkshire@berkshirepartners.com.

International data transfers
Your Personal Data may be transferred to, stored, and processed in a country other than the one in which it was collected, including the United States. Where required by data protection laws, when we do so, we rely on appropriate and suitable safeguards.

Privacy rights

We are committed to providing individuals with reasonable and appropriate access to their personal information. If you believe that we are processing personal information about you and wish to have access to that information, we can provide you with that data or at least an explanation of why we cannot do so in the particular context, such as where the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive. We are happy to correct inaccurate data or delete information that is not appropriate to retain. Please also let us know if you have any questions, concerns, disputes, or issues.

Individuals in certain jurisdictions may have certain data subject rights. These rights vary, but to the extent they apply, they may include the right to: (i) request access to and rectification or erasure of their personal data; (ii) restrict or object to the processing of their personal data; and (iii) obtain a copy of their personal data in a portable format. Individuals may also have the right to lodge a complaint about the processing of personal data with a data protection authority. If you do not feel we have resolved your concerns, please contact us using the details below. You may also have rights to appeal our determinations under local law, which also can be exercised by contacting us through the below contact information. We are always open to dialogue to resolve issues short of formal disputes.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights please email compliance@berkshirepartners.com or call us at +1 (617) 227-0050. The rights described herein are not absolute and we reserve all of our rights available to us at law in this regard. Additionally, if we retain your personal data only in de-identified form, we will not attempt to re-identify your data in response to a Data Subject Rights request.

We do not discriminate against you, for example, by offering a different level of service, for exercising any of these rights.

If you make a request related to personal data about you, we will need to verify your identity. To do so, we will request that you match specific pieces of information you have provided us previously, as well as, in some instances, provide a signed declaration under penalty of perjury that you are the individual whose personal information is the subject of the request. If it is necessary to collect additional information from you, we will use the information only for verification purposes and will delete it as soon as practicable after complying with the request. For requests related to particularly sensitive information, we may require additional proof of identification. If you make a request through an authorized agent, we will require written proof that the agent is authorized to act on your behalf. We will process your request within the time provided by applicable law.

Additionally, under California Civil law, Californians are entitled to request information relating to whether a business has disclosed personal data to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Californians who wish to request further information about our compliance with this statute or who have questions, more generally, about our Privacy Policy and our privacy commitments and our Sites should contact us at compliance@berkshirepartners.com or at Berkshire Partners LLC, Attn: Compliance, 200 Clarendon Street, 35th Floor, Boston, MA 02116.

Children’s Privacy

The Site is not directed towards children under the age of 18. We do not promote our products or services online to minors, and we do not intentionally collect any personally identifiable information from any person under 18. If we become aware of having collected personal information from children under the age of 18 without valid consent from their respective parents or guardians, we will delete it as soon as practicable.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

Although most changes are likely to be minor, the Firm may change this Privacy Notice from time to time, and at the Firm’s sole discretion. Upon any material change to this policy, the Firm will post those changes on the Site so that you are aware of what kinds of personal information we collect, use, share and otherwise process. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we will notify you on this Site, update the effective date above, and provide you with notice as required by applicable law.

Contact and Complaints

The Firm takes very seriously any complaints we receive about our use of your Personal Data. Questions, comments, requests or complaints regarding the Site, this Privacy Notice, the user agreement and/or our use of your Personal Data should be addressed to berkshire@berkshirepartners.com.

Any Personal Data we receive from you when making a complaint will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Notice and only to process the complaint and check on the level of service we provide. Similarly, where inquiries are submitted to us, we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the inquiry and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide.