Privacy Notice Switzerland 

In this General Private Declaration (“Declaration”) we, Mercer Alternatives AG (“Mercer” or just “we”), describe how we collect and process your personal data pursuant to the revised Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection («FADP») which entered into force on 1 September 2023. This Declaration is not necessarily a comprehensive description of such processing; other data protection statements (General Terms and Conditions; Terms of Use etc.) may be applicable.

The "controller" of data processing as described in this Declaration (i.e., the responsible person; art. 5 lit. j FADP) is Mercer Alternatives AG, Tessinerplatz 5, CH-8027 Zurich, Switzerland. You can notify us of any data protection related concerns using the following contact details: mercerCHlegal@mercer.com. Within Mercer Alternatives AG, the compliance team is responsible for any requests related to data protection.

The term "personal data" as used in this Declaration means any information that identifies, or could reasonably be used to identify, an individual (art. 5 lit. a FADP).

Personal data can be collected by us directly or indirectly as described below.

We primarily process personal data that we receive from the individuals to whom the personal data relate (“data subject”; art. 5 lit. b FADP), i.e. our clients, business partners, service providers and their representatives, directors, officers etc., as well as from other individuals in the course of our business relationships with them, or that we collect from users in operation of our website.

If you provide us with personal data of other individuals (e.g., family members, work colleagues), please make sure that the respective individuals are aware of this Declaration and only provide us with their personal data if you are authorized to do so and this personal data is true, correct and accurate.

To the extent we are permitted to do so, we obtain certain personal data from publicly available sources (e.g., debt collection register, land register, commercial register, press, internet),from affiliated companies, from authorities or other third parties (e.g., credit rating agencies, World-Check).

The categories of data we receive about you from third parties include, but are not limited to, any information

• from public registers (e.g., authority to sign for the company you represent),
• in connection with administrative, criminal, judicial or other proceedings,
• related to your professional role and activities,
• about you in correspondence and discussions with third parties,
• credit rating information (if we conduct business activities with you personally)
• about you provided to us by persons associated with you (family, consultants, legal representatives, reference providers etc.),
• about business partners for the purpose of ordering or providing services to you or by you (e.g., payments, purchases),
• information regarding legal regulations such as anti-money laundering and export restrictions,
• that can be found in the media or on the internet,
• relating to your use of our websites (e.g., IP address, MAC address of your smartphone or computer, information about your device and settings, cookies, date and time of your visit, pages and content viewed, applications used, referring website, localization data).

We use the personal data we collect primarily to enter into and perform contracts with our clients, business partners and service providers particularly in connection with the provision of asset management and investment advisory services, the offering of financial products and investment solutions and the assistance in the subscription of investment solutions, the procurement of products and services from our suppliers and subcontractors, as well as to comply with the applicable domestic and foreign legal obligations (e.g., anti-money laundering and terrorism financing obligations). In addition, we collect data of job applicants in order to review and assess their qualifications.  

In addition, we may process your personal data and the personal data of third parties in accordance with applicable law and, where applicable, for the following purposes that are in our interest (or, as the case may be, in the interest of third parties), such as:

• assessment of your investment and financial needs;
• assistance in the subscription process for investment vehicles, mainly collective investment schemes;
• development of our products and services;
• communication with our clients, business partners and services providers;
• communication with third parties (e.g., administrators, asset managers, depositaries) and authorities (e.g., supervisory authorities, tax authorities) and processing their requests;
• reviewing and optimizing needs assessment procedures for the enhancement of our client services;
• advertising, marketing and offering of investment vehicles, solutions and opportunities unless you have objected to the use of your data for this purpose to us;
• assertion of legal claims and defense in legal disputes and regulatory or other proceedings;
• prevention and investigation of crime and other misconduct (e.g., conducting internal investigations, data analysis to combat fraud);
• ensuring our operation, including IT and website;
• acquisition and sale of business divisions, companies or parts of companies and other corporate transactions and the transfer of personal data related thereto as well as measures for business management and compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.

If you have given us your consent to process your personal data for certain purposes (e.g. when registering to receive newsletters or carrying out a background check), we will process your personal data within the scope of and based on this consent, unless we have another legal basis, provided that we require one. Consent given can be withdrawn at any time, but this does not affect data processed prior to withdrawal.

We typically use "cookies" and similar techniques on our websites, which allow for an identification of your browser or device. A cookie is a small text file that is sent to your computer and automatically saved by the web browser on your computer or mobile device, when you visit our website. If you revisit our website, we may recognize you, even if we do not know your identity.

Most browsers are preset to accept cookies. We use permanent cookies for the purpose of saving user configuration (e.g., language, automated log in), in order to understand how you use our services and content, and to enable to show you customized offers and advertisement (which may also happen on websites of other companies; should your identity be known to us, such companies will not learn your identity from us; they will only know that the same user is visiting their website has previously visited a certain website). Certain cookies are sent to you from us, others from business partners with which we collaborate. If you block cookies, it is possible that certain functions (such as, e.g., language settings, shopping basket, ordering processes) are no longer available to you.

In accordance with applicable law, we may include visible and invisible image files in our newsletters and other marketing e-mails. If such image files are retrieved from our servers, we can determine whether and when you have opened the e-mail, so that we can measure and better understand how you use our offers and customize them. You may disable this in your e-mail program, which will usually be a default setting.

We may use Google Analytics or similar services on our website. These are services provided by third parties, which may be located in any country worldwide (in the case of Google Analytics Google Ireland Ltd. (located in Ireland), Google Ireland relies on Google LLC (located in the United States) as its sub-processor (both «Google»), www.google.com) and which allow us to measure and evaluate the use of our website (on an anonymized basis). For this purpose, permanent cookies are used, which are set by the service provider. We have configured the service so that the IP addresses of visitors are truncated by Google in Europe before forwarding them to the United States and then cannot be traced back. We have turned off the «Data sharing» option and the «Signals» option. Although we can assume that the information we share with Google is not personal data for Google, it may be possible that Google may be able to draw conclusions about the identity of visitors based on the data collected, create personal profiles and link this data with the Google accounts of these individuals for its own purposes. If you have registered with the service provider, the service provider will also know your identity. In this case, the processing of your personal data by the service provider will be conducted in accordance with its data protection regulations. The service provider only provides us with data on the use of the respective website (but not any personal information of you).

The provider of our website automatically collects and stores information in so-called server log files, which your browser automatically transmits to us. These are:

• Browser type and Browser version
• Operating system used
• Referrer URL
• Host name of the accessing computer
• Time of the server request

This data cannot be assigned to specific persons. This data is not merged with other data sources. We reserve the right to check this data retrospectively if we become aware of specific indications of illegal use.

In addition, we may use plug-ins from social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest or Instagram on our websites. This is visible for you (typically based on the respective symbols). We have configured these elements to be disabled by default. If you activate them (by clicking on them), the operators of the respective social networks may record that you are on our website and where on our website you are exactly and may use this information for their own purposes. This processing of your personal data lays in the responsibility of the respective operator and occurs according to its data protection regulations. We do not receive any information about you from the respective operator.

In the course of our business and in accordance with the purposes of data processing set out in Section 3, we may transfer data to third parties where such transfer is permitted and where we consider it appropriate for them to process the data on our behalf or, as the case may be, for their own purposes (such as the administrators).

The data transferred to third parties shall be limited to the minimum required to achieve the respective purpose. The following categories of recipients may be involved:

• financial institutions, mainly of the funds managed by us and offered to you (e.g., administrators, depositaries, brokers and other counterparties);
• service providers (e.g., IT providers, cloud providers);
• bookkeeping, legal, tax, marketing, compliance and risk management services providers;
• domestic and foreign supervisory and other authorities and courts;
• acquirers or parties interested in the acquisition of (parts of) Mercer;
• media of any kind;
• other parties to potential or pending legal, regulatory or other proceedings;
• affiliates of the group of companies to which Mercer Alternatives AG belongs.

Recipients of your data are not only located in Switzerland and the European Economic Area. In certain cases, your personal data may therefore also be processed in the USA, the United Kingdom, India and other countries worldwide where the MarshMcLennan group has offices of where external services providers have offices; but in exceptional cases in any country in the world. These countries may not have laws that ensure an adequate level of data protection from the perspective of the FADP.

If the recipient is in a country that does not have an adequate level of data protection from the perspective of the applicable data protection law, we will therefore require the recipient to comply with the applicable data protection law. For this purpose, we will use the revised European Commission’s standard contractual clauses, which can be accessed here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?), unless the recipient is subject to a legally accepted set of rules to ensure data protection and unless we cannot revoke an exception. An exception may apply, for example, in the case of legal proceedings abroad or if you have consented, but also in cases of an overriding public interest or if the performance of a contract requires the transfer.

We process and store your personal data for as long as is necessary for the fulfillment of our contractual obligation and compliance with legal, regulatory, tax and other obligations or other purposes pursued with the processing, i.e., for the duration of the entire business relationship (from the initiation, during the performance of the contract until its termination) and beyond that in accordance with statutory retention and documentation obligations. Personal data may be retained for the period during which claims can be asserted against Mercer or insofar as we are otherwise legally obligated to do so or if legitimate business interests require further retention (e.g., for evidence and documentation purposes). As soon as your data is no longer required for such purposes, it will be deleted or anonymized, to the extent possible.

We have taken appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect your personal data from unauthorized access and misuse such as internal policies, training, IT and network security solutions, access controls and restrictions etc.

In the context of our business relationship, you must provide us with all personal data that is required for the conclusion and performance of our contractual obligations (mainly for AML reasons) and for the investment in investment vehicles offered by us. Without this information, we generally cannot conclude or perform a contract with you (or the legal entity or natural person you represent) or you cannot invest in this vehicle.

We may process your personal data in part automatically to evaluate certain personal aspects (profiling). Profiling enables us in particular to inform and advise you more specifically about products that may be relevant to you. For this purpose, we may use evaluation tools that enable us to communicate with you and advertise to you as needed, including market and opinion research.

When initiating and conducting a business relationship, we generally do not use fully automated individual decision-making (such as pursuant to art. 21 FADP). Should we use such procedures in certain cases, we will inform you separately about this and inform you of your rights in this regard, insofar as this is required by law.

The applicable data protection law grants you the right to object to the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances, in particular for the purposes of direct marketing, profiling for direct advertising and other legitimate interests in processing. If the statutory requirements are met and no exceptions apply, you also have the right to

• request access to your personal data;
• have incorrect personal data corrected;
• have your personal data deleted or anonymized;
• have certain personal data transferred to you in a standard electronic format or to have it transferred to another controller (“data portability”);
• withdraw consent with effect for the future (if our processing is based on your consent).

Please note that we reserve the right to assert legal restrictions, e.g., if we are obliged to retain or process certain data, have an overriding interest or require the data to assert claims. If the exercise of certain rights is associated with costs for you, we will inform you in advance. Please also note that the exercise of these rights may conflict with your contractual obligations, and this may result in consequences such as premature termination of the contract or be associated with costs. Should this be the case, we will inform you in advance, unless this has already been contractually agreed.

Exercising these rights usually requires that you are able to prove your identity (e.g., by providing a copy of identification documents if your identity is not otherwise apparent or can be verified in some other way). To exercise these rights, please contact us at the addresses listed in Section 1.

In addition, you have the right to assert your rights in court or to file a complaint with the competent data protection authority. The competent data protection authority in Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (http://www.edoeb.admin.ch).

We may amend this Declaration at any time without prior notice. The current version published on our website shall apply. If the Privacy Notice is part of an agreement with you, we will notify you by e-mail or other appropriate means in case of an amendment.

Version effective as of [September 1^st, 2023]