General Terms and Conditions for the use of the freelance.co.uk platform

1. Scope of application
2. Contractual object
3. Registration and user account
4. Obligations of users
5. Deletion of content, blocking of users, liability of the user
6. Prices and terms of payment
7. Liability
8. Data protection
9. Termination of the contract
10. Final provisions

(Note: In order not to impair the flow of reading, only the masculine form is mentioned here and in the following contract text, but the feminine and other forms are always equally meant).

1. Scope of application

1.1. These terms of use govern the legal relationship between freelance.de GmbH (hereinafter: "freelance.co.uk") as operator of the online platform freelance.co.uk and the registered users (hereinafter: "users") of this B2B online platform. These terms of use govern the use of the online platform freelance.co.uk, including the use of the freelance.co.uk blog, exclusively and irrespective of the end device or operating system used, including the use of the services via the corresponding apps.

1.2. Deviating terms and conditions of the user will only apply if and insofar as they are recognised in writing by freelance.co.uk.

2. Contractual object

2.1. freelance.co.uk provides an information, service and communication platform that gives users the opportunity to acquire personnel and projects and to present themselves. In addition, the services of freelance.co.uk also enable the exchange of electronic messages between user groups and between users and freelance.co.uk. In addition, freelance.co.uk provides users with a blog for the exchange and factual commenting on posts (freelance.co.uk blog).

2.2. The services of freelance.co.uk are divided into free memberships and paid memberships.

2.3. The current overview of the services of the various membership types and accounts is available on freelance.co.uk. freelance.co.uk reserves the right to expand, change, reduce or partially discontinue its range of services for the ongoing development of freelance.co.uk, insofar as this does not unreasonably affect the interests of the respective user concerned. Claims of the user for reduction, reimbursement or compensation do not arise from this. However, the user is entitled to terminate his membership extraordinarily for good cause in accordance with clause 9.3, i.e. without observing the period of notice provided for in clause 9.2, if during an agreed minimum term or until the expiry of the period for ordinary termination the range of services selected and ordered by him is reduced or discontinued to a significant extent.

2.4. freelance.co.uk grants the user the best possible availability of content and services within the framework of technical possibilities. freelance.co.uk is entitled to briefly interrupt access to freelance.co.uk for necessary maintenance, security or updating work. No responsibility can be accepted for disruptions to availability that are beyond the control of freelance.co.uk.

2.5. Partner offers are, unless expressly described otherwise, only available to groups of users specified by freelance.co.uk, which freelance.co.uk determines at its own discretion. freelance.co.uk is involved in the contracts concluded directly between the users and the partner companies neither as a contractual partner nor as a representative. The GTC and privacy policies of the respective partner companies apply to these partner offers.

2.6 freelance.co.uk can inform every user about new own offers and offers of partner companies. freelance.co.uk can actively send information to registered users in order to bring providers and enquirers together so that projects can be filled as quickly and efficiently as possible and successfully realised from the point of view of the respective contracting parties. The communication channels available and used on the market (such as e-mail, internal messages, SMS, messenger services, social feeds) can be used for this purpose.

3. Registration and user account

3.1. The use of the services available on freelance.co.uk requires registration and login as a user. There is no entitlement to participation as a user. freelance.co.uk is entitled to reject user applications without giving reasons.

3.2 The user is only permitted to register and log in if he is of full age and has unlimited legal capacity. Minors are prohibited from registering and logging in. In the case of a legal entity, registration and login must be carried out by a natural person with unlimited legal capacity and power of representation.

3.3. By submitting the registration form, the user makes an offer to conclude a user agreement with freelance.co.uk. If freelance.co.uk accepts the registration, the user will receive a confirmation e-mail with a personalised activation link. By clicking on this activation link, a contract for the use of freelance.co.uk services (hereinafter referred to as "contract of use") is concluded between freelance.co.uk and the user. To complete the registration, the user must call up the link provided with the confirmation e-mail. The contract of use shall come into effect before the activation link is activated, insofar as a membership subject to a charge has already been concluded by the user.

3.4 Upon successful registration, a user account is created for the user, which the user can access using his e-mail address and password. The password can be changed by the user at any time in the password-protected user area. It must be kept secret by the user and protected from access by unauthorised third parties. If the user discovers or suspects that his access data is being used by a third party without authorisation, he must inform freelance.co.uk immediately and change his password without delay.

3.5 Each user may only register once for the respective commercial or freelance use of the services of freelance.co.uk. User accounts are not transferable. In the event of infringements, individual or all user accounts can be blocked or deleted by freelance.co.uk; in such a case, freelance.co.uk also reserves the right to extraordinary termination of individual or all accounts of the affected user. A refund of membership fees already paid shall not be made in this respect; corresponding membership fees shall be retained as lump-sum compensation, whereby the member shall be permitted to prove that no damage or not the corresponding amount of damage has been incurred. If this can be proven, freelance.co.uk will refund the corresponding membership fees proportionally as far as these exceed the damage incurred. As far as an actual damage incurred by freelance.co.uk exceeds the amount of the retained or withheld membership fees, a further claim for damages is expressly reserved. The retained contributions shall be credited against any further claims for damages.

4. Obligations of users

4.1. The user is obliged

4.1.1. to provide only true and non-misleading information on freelance.co.uk and in communication with other users and not to use pseudonyms, in particular advertised offers (profiles, projects) must be real, in case of doubt and at the request of freelance.co.uk the user must provide proof that the advertised projects are real; the publication of falsified or no longer existing offers (profiles, projects) is prohibited and may result in a temporary or complete blocking of the account, extraordinary termination by freelance.co.uk and/or the assertion of claims for damages and/or communicated to other users or made visible to them. freelance.co.uk reserves the right to use a bonus/malus system that favours well-maintained and constantly updated profiles and projects in comparison to other profiles and projects in terms of visibility and perceptibility;

4.1.2. to only enter information in data fields for which the respective data field is intended according to its description and not to enter information, in particular contact data, in places other than those intended;

4.1.3. to keep his information on freelance.co.uk up-to-date and complete. The project provider is obliged to take his project publication offline immediately as soon as an offer is no longer up to date. The freelancer is obliged to keep his availability information updated. In the event of infringements, freelance.co.uk can take appropriate measures, which include in particular the deletion of obviously outdated or no longer existing offers (profiles, projects); in addition, freelance.co.uk reserves the right to place outdated profiles or projects of users or those that have not been updated for a period of 2 years offline in accordance with section 3.5;

4.1.4. to publish only such content on freelance.co.uk (in particular when creating their own profile or their own project advertisements) and to send only such messages to other users which, within the scope of the purpose of freelance.co.uk, serve to initiate a service, work, labour or other employment relationship directly between the users (or in the case of mediation between a user and a client of the mediator) or to comment factually on the posts in the freelance.co.uk blog. Extraneous publications and internal messages (e.g. advertising) are not permitted, especially internal messages that are not personalised (e.g. mass or chain mails) or do not have a clear reference to the recipient's profile;

4.1.5. to keep his access data (user name, password) secret and not to pass them on to third parties;

4.1.6. to treat all information and data received from other users in the context of using freelance.co.uk as confidential and not to pass it on or make it accessible to third parties, unless it is clearly recognisable that the user is acting as an intermediary; in this case, the intermediary may only pass on the information and data received to his customers or make it accessible to his customers to the extent required by the purpose of the mediation. This obligation shall survive the termination of the contract;

4.1.7. to use his account exclusively himself or through an authorised representative and not to offer or provide third parties with the acquired services without the consent of freelance.co.uk, in particular not to provide other users with services from his account for use; it is also the responsibility of the user to ensure that his access to freelance.co.uk and the use of the services available on freelance.co.uk is carried out exclusively by him or by the person authorised by him. If it is feared that unauthorised third parties have gained or will gain knowledge of his access data, freelance.co.uk must be informed immediately; the user is liable for any use and/or other activity carried out under his access data in accordance with the statutory provisions;

4.1.8. in the event of the existence of several accounts (e.g. for own employees) to make each account available to only one person and for the account to be used only by this person. freelance.co.uk reserves the right to check compliance with this restriction of use, also by technical means. In the event of infringements, freelance.co.uk can levy a contractual penalty per unauthorised use, which freelance.co.uk can determine unilaterally at its reasonable discretion in accordance with the respective circumstances of the individual case. Rights of use, in particular for staff employed by the user, can be acquired;

4.1.9. to refrain from any action that could damage or impair the functionality of the technical infrastructure of freelance.co.uk and the secure operation of the services of freelance.co.uk, impair the availability of the data stored by freelance.co.uk or pester other users;

4.1.10. not to publish any illegal content on freelance.co.uk, not to publish any logos or images of third parties without their prior consent and not to violate any rights of third parties; in particular not to publish or refer to any insulting, defamatory, pornographic, youth-endangering or otherwise illegal content. This also applies to comments on posts on the freelance.co.uk blog.

4.2. The user assures that he is the owner of all rights required for publication with regard to the content he provides and will refrain from posting content that violates copyright, trademark and competition law regulations.

4.3. It is not permitted to commercially process the data obtained via freelance.co.uk, to trade with this data or to approach users with advertising if the products or services advertised / offered are in competition with freelance.co.uk. In the event of a breach of these provisions, a contractual penalty to be determined by freelance.co.uk at its reasonable discretion will be triggered. This can amount to up to EUR 10,000 per violation. Further claims of freelance.co.uk remain unaffected. The contractual penalty shall be offset against any further claims for damages.

5. Deletion of content, blocking of users, liability of the user

5.1. freelance.co.uk reserves the right to delete content published by users or not to publish certain content if it is illegal, offends common decency or the rights of third parties, is incompatible with the purpose and form of freelance.co.uk, in particular if it is false, if it contradicts these terms of use, or if publication is unreasonable for other reasons. The aforementioned right to delete content published by users or not to publish certain content also exists in cases where the correctness of content published or to be published is in dispute between two or more users until the dispute is finally resolved. In addition, freelance.co.uk reserves the right to correct content published by users insofar as it contains spelling mistakes, obvious errors or typing errors (e.g. "typos" or "transposed numbers").

5.2. If the user violates obligations that apply to him according to the provisions of this contract, freelance.co.uk is entitled to temporarily block the user account or to extraordinarily terminate the contract with the user for good cause according to clause 9.3. A refund of membership fees already paid will not be made; corresponding membership fees will be retained as lump-sum compensation, whereby the member is permitted to prove that no damage or not the corresponding amount of damage has occurred. If the member can prove this, freelance.co.uk will refund the membership fees proportionally as far as they exceed the damage incurred. Further claims remain unaffected whereby the lump-sum compensation will be offset against further claims for compensation.

5.3. As far as a user has been temporarily or permanently excluded from the use of services by freelance.co.uk according to paragraph 5.2. or the existing contract with the user has been terminated, the user is prohibited from using the services offered by freelance.co.uk with other user accounts, including such user accounts which have been created for third parties, or to sign up again for registration on freelance.co.uk. In the event of temporary or indefinite blocking, freelance.co.uk will block the user access and notify the user of this by e-mail. In the case of a temporary block, freelance.co.uk reactivates the access authorisation after the blocking period has expired and notifies the user of this by e-mail.

5.4. In the event of an infringement of third party rights by publications of the user on freelance.co.uk, the user indemnifies freelance.co.uk from all third party claims. The indemnification also includes the necessary legal costs, including all court and lawyer's fees in the amount of the legally stipulated rates. In the event of a claim by a third party, the user is furthermore obliged to provide freelance.co.uk, upon request, immediately, truthfully and completely with all information and details that are necessary for the examination of the claims and any necessary defence against the claims.

5.5. freelance.co.uk reserves the right, until a binding clarification, to temporarily block data if their accuracy is doubtful or third parties (in particular other users) have comprehensibly claimed their own rights or even an infringement in this context.

6. Prices and terms of payment

6.1. The prices applicable at the time of the respective service provision and/or visible on www.freelance.co.uk apply to the fee-based offers of freelance.co.uk.

6.2. The fees for receiving services from freelance.co.uk are due for payment as follows:

The fees and charges for services provided by freelance.co.uk are payable and due immediately upon receipt of the invoice or according to the payment terms stated on the invoice. After the due date, default occurs immediately.
The user agrees that invoices and payment reminders can be sent by e-mail. Invoices are always available in the user's account until it is deleted.

6.3. freelance.co.uk reserves the right to adjust the respective applicable prices. Price adjustments as well as adjustments to the scope of services apply immediately to all newly concluded memberships. In the case of existing customers, the price adjustments do not apply retroactively to contractual terms of membership that have already begun, but only with a renewal or a new conclusion of the term of membership.

6.4. Insofar as the user is offered or granted special conditions or reduced fees compared to the respective current prices on the part of freelance.co.uk, these special conditions or reduced fees refer exclusively to the individual contract term justified in connection with the special offer. In the event of a subsequent extension or a new conclusion of the term of the membership, the fees to be paid – subject to an express deviating individual regulation – shall be based on the general prices applicable at the time of the respective provision of services and the prices which can be viewed at www.freelance.co.uk.

6.5. Withholding of payments or offsetting with counterclaims by the user is only permissible if these counterclaims are bindingly recognised by freelance.co.uk or have been legally established.

6.6. Payment by direct debit, credit card and online payment service, e.g. Paypal is made via external contractual partners, who are named on www.freelance.co.uk at this link (see section 2.5. Data transfer to third countries / third parties, "External payment service providers"). In the event of an unjustified cancellation, claims of freelance.co.uk are assigned to the one of the aforementioned contractual partners who carried out the corresponding payment transaction. Further processing shall then take place exclusively in the relationship between the user and the aforementioned contractual partner who executed the corresponding payment transaction.

7. Liability

7.1. freelance.co.uk is not liable for the accuracy, completeness or legality of information published by users. The content of users published on freelance.co.uk, the participant pages of freelance.co.uk in social networks (e.g. Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn) as well as on the freelance.co.uk blog does not reflect the opinion of freelance.co.uk and is not checked for accuracy, completeness or legality.

7.2. freelance.co.uk is only liable for damages, regardless of the legal reason, if freelance.co.uk, their legal representatives or vicarious agents have caused the damage through gross negligence or intentionally or if the damage is due to the breach of an essential contractual obligation.

7.3. In the case of liability for the breach of an essential contractual obligation, without freelance.co.uk being guilty of gross negligence or intent, as well as in the case of liability for gross negligence or intent on the part of employees who are not managing directors or executive employees of freelance.co.uk, the liability of freelance.co.uk is limited to the typically foreseeable damage, which as a rule does not exceed an annual usage fee.

7.4. Liability in the event of injury to life, body or health as well as liability for an assumed guarantee shall remain unaffected by the above provisions.

7.5. freelance.co.uk hereby expressly distances itself from all content of all pages linked or referred to from the freelance.co.uk website. This applies to all links and references set within the own Internet offer as well as to external entries in guest books, discussion forums and mailing lists. The respective provider of the linked site is solely responsible for illegal, incorrect or incomplete content and in particular for damages arising from the use or non-use of such information provided and not freelance.co.uk as the party that merely refers to the respective publication via links.

8. Data protection

8.1. freelance.co.uk collects, processes and uses user data within the framework of the applicable data protection laws.

8.2. Reference is made to the privacy policy (click here).

9. Termination of the contract

9.1. The contract for free membership may be terminated by the contracting parties at any time without giving reasons.

9.2. The contract for a paid membership shall initially run for the minimum period of use booked by the user, but for a maximum period of one year. If the user or freelance.co.uk does not terminate the contract in time, the paid membership will be extended by renewal periods of the same duration. The contract for a paid membership can be terminated with a notice period of 7 days before the end of the minimum contract period.

9.3. The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. An important reason exists in particular if the user violates legal regulations, breaches essential obligations according to this contract or significantly endangers the good reputation of freelance.co.uk.

9.4. After termination of the contract, freelance.co.uk is entitled to delete all content published by the user on freelance.co.uk.

10. Final provisions

10.1. Amendments or supplements to this contract must be made in writing. This also applies to the written form clause. Verbal collateral agreements have not been made.

10.2. The assignment of claims of any kind against freelance.co.uk to third parties is excluded. § 354 a German Commercial Code (HGB) remains unaffected.

10.3. freelance.co.uk reserves the right to change these general terms and conditions of use. freelance.co.uk will inform the user of the new terms and conditions of use in good time before the planned entry into force of the changes. In this case, the user has the right to terminate the contractual relationship within 4 weeks of receiving this information. After expiration of this period, the change is considered approved by the user. freelance.co.uk will inform the user when the new terms of use come into effect when notifying the user of the new terms of use.

10.4. The law of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). If the user is a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law or has no general place of jurisdiction in the Federal Republic of Germany, the court at the registered office of freelance.co.uk is agreed as the exclusive place of jurisdiction. freelance.co.uk is, however, also entitled to take legal action at the general place of jurisdiction of the user.

10.5. Should any provision of the contract be invalid in whole or in part, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining clauses and the remaining parts of such clauses. The contracting parties are obliged to immediately replace ineffective parts of a clause by way of supplementary agreement with such an agreement that comes closest to the economic result of the ineffective provision. In case of doubt, the invalid provision shall be deemed replaced by such an agreement.

Update: July 2021