This English version is a translation of the German terms and conditions. In the event of any discrepancy, the German version prevails.
1. Scope and subject matter
(1) These General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter “Terms”) apply to all contracts for the use of the software-as-a-service platform “DocuNorm” (hereinafter “Platform”) concluded between FRESEN.IT LTD, Peiraios 30, Floor 1, Flat/Office 1, 2023, Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus (hereinafter “Provider”) and the customer.
(2) The service is aimed exclusively at entrepreneurs within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code (BGB), legal entities under private and public law and special funds under public law (B2B). Contracts with consumers within the meaning of § 13 BGB are excluded.
(3) Conflicting terms of the customer, or terms that deviate from these Terms, do not apply unless the Provider has expressly agreed to their validity in writing.
2. Conclusion of contract and registration
(1) Use of the Platform requires the creation of a user account (registration). The data requested during registration must be provided completely and truthfully.
(2) The presentation of the plans on the website does not constitute a binding offer. By submitting the registration or booking a paid plan, the customer makes a binding offer to conclude a contract of use. The contract is concluded by express confirmation by email or by activation of the user account.
3. Scope of services
(1) The Provider gives the customer access to the Platform in its current version via the internet under the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The specific range of functions is determined by the service description of the plan booked.
(2) Exclusion of legal advice: The Provider exclusively provides a technical infrastructure for the automated creation, management and formatting of document templates. The Provider does not provide legal services within the meaning of the German Legal Services Act (Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz, RDG). It supplies no model contracts and no template texts; field sets supplied, for instance for details of companies or individuals, are data schemas without contractual content. The customer alone is responsible for checking the legal validity, completeness and currency of the clauses, contracts and templates it uses.
(3) The Provider reserves the right to further develop or adapt functions or to replace them with equivalent functionality, provided this is reasonable for the customer and the main purpose of the contract is preserved.
(4) If the customer has no current paid subscription, the Provider may delete contracts ten years after they were generated. It announces the deletion several times in advance and with reasonable notice by email to the address stored in the user account. Until deletion, the customer can download the contracts even without a subscription. This reservation does not apply as long as a paid subscription is running.
(5) If a third party, such as a law firm, provides contract texts or templates via the Platform, that third party is responsible for their content. The Provider does not check such content and does not adopt it as its own; paragraph 2 applies accordingly.
4. Obligations of the customer
(1) The customer is obliged to protect the access data of its user account against access by unauthorised third parties and to keep passwords secret. The Provider must be informed without delay if misuse is suspected.
(2) The customer bears sole responsibility for the content and templates it enters into the system. It ensures that the entry and processing of content does not infringe any third-party rights (in particular copyrights, trade mark rights and personality rights) or statutory provisions.
(3) The customer is obliged to regularly back up the generated documents outside the Platform on its own systems.
(4) If the customer connects the Platform to its own systems or to third-party services, for instance to its mailbox for sending contracts or via interfaces such as the API, webhooks and Zapier, it determines the recipients and the purpose itself. The customer alone is responsible for these connections, the connected systems and the processing of data there. This applies to every type of connection, including those the Platform offers in future.
5. Rights of use and intellectual property
(1) All rights to the Platform, in particular to the software, source code, database structure, typesetting and layout system, documentation and trade marks, belong to the Provider. Only the rights expressly granted in paragraph 2 pass to the customer.
(2) For the term of the contract, the Provider grants the customer the simple (non-exclusive), non-transferable and non-sublicensable right to use the Platform as intended via the internet within the scope of the plan booked. The software is not handed over to the customer.
(3) The fee under section 7 is the licence fee for this right of use.
(4) The customer is prohibited from reproducing, modifying, decompiling or reverse engineering the Platform or parts of it, unless mandatory law permits this. It is likewise prohibited from automatically extracting content of the Platform outside the interfaces intended for this purpose, from circumventing technical protection or access restrictions and from using the Platform to develop a comparable product.
(5) Content that the customer brings into the Platform, in particular templates, texts, data and logos, remains the customer’s. The customer grants the Provider the rights needed for operation: to store, process and display it and to generate documents from it.
(6) The customer may use the contracts and documents generated with the Platform without restriction, including after the end of the contract.
(7) In the free plan, the generated documents and emails carry the note “Created with DocuNorm”. The customer may not remove or obscure it.
6. Availability and maintenance
(1) The Provider aims for an average availability of the Platform of 99% per calendar year at the transfer point (router output of the data centre).
(2) Excluded from the availability calculation are regular maintenance work and times when the Platform cannot be reached due to technical circumstances outside the Provider’s control (e.g. force majeure, strikes, faults in third-party telecommunications networks).
(3) Planned maintenance is announced to the customer with reasonable notice in advance by email or via the Platform and, where possible, scheduled at times of low usage.
7. Fees and payment
(1) The fee is based on the price list for the chosen plan valid at the time the contract is concluded. All prices stated are net prices plus the applicable statutory VAT.
(2) Usage fees are due in advance for the respective billing period (monthly or yearly). Payment is made using the payment methods offered on the Platform.
(3) If the customer is in default of payment, the Provider is entitled to temporarily block access to the Platform after a prior reminder and a reasonable grace period. The customer’s payment obligation remains unaffected.
(4) For each company the customer manages in the Platform, 10 GB of storage for contracts and documents is included in the fee. For storage used beyond this, the Provider may charge €1 plus VAT per additional gigabyte per month. It announces such charges in advance in text form.
8. Term and termination
(1) Paid plans are billed monthly or yearly. The term corresponds to the billing period and is automatically extended by the same period unless the contract is terminated.
(2) The customer can terminate via the termination function in the user account as long as the term has not yet been extended. The termination takes effect at the end of the current term.
(3) In addition, both parties can terminate in text form (§ 126b BGB) with seven days’ notice to the end of the current term. This notice period does not apply to termination via the user account under paragraph 2.
(4) With yearly billing, the term is twelve months. If the customer terminates, the fee paid for these twelve months is not refunded pro rata; access remains until the end of the term. This does not apply if the customer terminates for good cause for which the Provider is responsible.
(5) The free plan runs for an indefinite period. The customer can terminate it at any time by deleting its company in the Platform, or in text form. The Provider can terminate it with 30 days’ notice in text form; until the end of this period, the customer can download its contracts.
(6) The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. Good cause for the Provider exists in particular if the customer, despite a reminder, is in default with the payment of amounts due or culpably breaches material provisions of these Terms.
9. Liability
(1) The Provider is liable without limitation for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health based on an intentional or negligent breach of duty, as well as in cases of intent, gross negligence and under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz).
(2) In the free plan, the Provider is not liable for simple negligence. In paid plans, it is liable for simple negligence only in the event of a breach of material contractual obligations (cardinal obligations). Cardinal obligations are obligations whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance the contracting party may regularly rely. In this case, liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract, but at most to the amount the customer paid in the preceding contract year or, if the contract has run for a shorter period, to the amount agreed for the first full contract year.
(3) Otherwise, the Provider’s liability is excluded. This applies in particular to consequential damage, lost profit or damage resulting from the customer’s use of generated contracts with incorrect content.
10. Data protection and data processing
(1) The parties comply with the applicable data protection regulations, in particular the GDPR.
(2) Insofar as the customer processes personal data of third parties (e.g. of signatories or employees) while using the Platform, the customer acts as controller. For this case, the parties conclude a separate data processing agreement (DPA) under Art. 28 GDPR, which is made available to the parties during registration or in the customer account.
11. Changes to these Terms
(1) The Provider reserves the right to amend these Terms with effect for the future if there are valid reasons for doing so (e.g. changes in legislation, changes in case law, further development of the Platform).
(2) Changes are notified to the customer in text form at least six weeks before they are planned to take effect. If the customer does not object to the changes within six weeks of receiving the notification, the amended Terms are deemed accepted.
(3) The notification of changes informs the customer separately of the right to object and of the legal consequences of not objecting. If the customer objects in due time, both parties have the right to terminate as of the date on which the change is planned to take effect.
12. Final provisions
(1) The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).
(2) The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising out of or in connection with this contract is the Provider’s registered office, provided the customer is a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law. The Provider is also entitled to sue the customer at the customer’s general place of jurisdiction.
(3) Should individual provisions of this contract be or become invalid or unenforceable, this does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. The statutory provisions apply in place of the invalid provision.