This Complaints Handling Policy (the “Policy”) is intended to provide clients with information relating to the complaint handling arrangements that Three Hills Capital (“THC” or the “Company”) have in place pursuant to Clause 21 of the Internal procedures and Compliance manual of the Company.
The purpose of the Policy is to prescribe the appropriate action required by the Company to be taken in the
case of receiving a complaint from any client.
This Policy has applicability to complaints that may be received from the clients of THC.
This Policy applies to all THC employees and Officers.
The Company considers that client complaints are crucial to the long-term business as:
• An efficient handling of such complaints ensures that regulatory and legal risk are substantially reduced;
• An efficient handling of client complaints supports the long-term competitive advantage of the business; client disputes, even where client claims are unfounded, bear a reputational and possibly an operational / business impact.
3. Handling of Complaints
The Compliance Officer of the Company maintains an Internal Complaints Register documenting the complaints received and actions taken.
Information on complaints and complaints-handling is available for the inspection by the Mauritius Financial Services Commission.
3.1. What constitutes a complaint
A complainant is defined as any person, natural or legal, which is eligible for lodging a complaint to THC and who has already lodged a complaint.
A complaint is defined as any oral or written (whether received by letter, fax, e-mail, or other electronic means), expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, from, or on behalf of, a client or potential client about the provision of, or failure to provide, a service under the Terms of Business (Schedule 3 of the Internal Procedures and Compliance manual) which alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience. Non-trivial complaints include complaints that involve allegations of a breach of law or regulation, negligence, serious breach of an obligation, a conflict of interest or a leak of confidential or price sensitive information.
It should be clarified that complaints may relate to the operational support part of providing a service and not only to the execution of a trade order; for example, a complaint may relate to a delay in the payment to a client of the funds credited to the client’s account from ‘sell’ trades or it may relate to delays in sending statements of account to the client.
3.2. How to make a complaint
Complaints can be raised by clients with their usual THC contact. If clients are not satisfied with the response of their usual THC contact (or prefer not to raise the matter with that contact) they may raise the matter to the Compliance Officer at compliance@chilinglobal.com.
Where the client considers that the Company has not addressed their concerns correctly, the client has the right to refer the matter to the Mauritius Financial Services Commission at www.fscmauritius.org
3.3. Action upon receipt of a complaint
Where a complaint has been received, all employees must adhere to the following procedures:
• Where a non-trivial complaint has been made verbally, the client should be asked to put his complaint in writing (e-mail is acceptable);
• Any written complaint (whether received by letter, fax, e-mail, or other electronic means), non-trivial verbal complaint or where significant error arise or appear to take place, should immediately be referred to the Compliance Officer of THC;
• The Compliance Officer should immediately register the complaint in the Internal Complaints Register giving it a unique reference number. The Internal Complaints Register is maintained by the Compliance Officer; Receipt of the complaint should be acknowledged in writing within a maximum of 2 working days by the responsible person within THC who received the complaint.
3.4. Responses to complaints
All written complaints must be:
1) Investigated carefully with a view to producing a prompt written response.
Thus the Board and senior management of the Company must as soon as reasonably practicable (and in any
event within 10 working days) consider the complaint and decide on the appropriate course of action having
regard to the seriousness of the issues raised by the complainant. In consultation with the Compliance Officer,
a decision must also be taken as to whether the regulator should be notified if the complaint is significant.
2) All complaints should be resolved as soon as possible and in no event later than within two months of the receipt of the complaint, unless litigation matters arise. A response on the outcome / decision of the investigation should be sent to the complainant within two months of receipt of the complaint. If a resolution is impossible within this timeframe, a letter should be sent to the complainant advising the reasons for the delay and indicates the period of time within it is possible to complete the investigation. This period of time cannot exceed three months from the submission of the complaint.
3) Where the complaint has been resolved to the satisfaction of the client, every effort should take place to ensure that the acknowledgment of the client’s satisfaction is recorded; where such acknowledgement takes the form of only a relevant verbal comment by the client, the employee handling the complaint is encouraged to notify the Compliance Officer in order to record this in the Internal Complaints Register.
Training on the Complaints Handling Policy and the handling of client complaints is provided to all relevant staff.
Records of all complaints should be retained in line with the Company’s Record Keeping Procedure This obligation
applies irrespective of whether the complaint involves an allegation of financial loss or material distress or inconvenience,
and irrespective of whether they are resolved.
The Policy will be reviewed at least annually, or as necessary to keep pace with any changes. The most recent version of this Policy will always be available on our website.
