(As of January 2022)

Wherever in these General Terms and Conditions descriptions referring to natural persons are only given in the female form, these refer to women and men in the same way.

General Principles

a) All legal transactions between the client and the contractor shall be governed exclusively by these General Terms and Conditions (GTC). The version valid at the time of conclusion of the contract shall be authoritative in each case. The contractor shall conclude contracts only on the basis of the following terms and conditions. When placing an order, the client expressly acknowledges that she has taken legally binding notice of these Terms and Conditions, so that they have become part of the contract. This shall also apply if the client refers to her own General Terms and Conditions. Any individual agreements shall take precedence over the terms and conditions stated herein.

b) These General Terms and Conditions shall also apply to all future contractual relationships, therefore even if no express reference is made to them in the case of supplementary agreements.

c) Conflicting General Terms and Conditions of the client shall not form part of the contract unless they are expressly recognised in writing by the contractor.

Extent of the service

a) The contractor shall provide the client with language services [this includes in particular copy-editing and proofreading as well as related additional services].

b) The contractor commits to performing all assigned tasks to the best of her knowledge and in accordance with the general rules for language service providers and the principles of economic efficiency. However, the contractor does not owe any success. She is not responsible for ensuring that her service fulfils the purpose desired by the client. This is the responsibility of the client.

c) The client commits to informing the contractor of the purpose for which the text to be edited is to be used when submitting the source text for the purpose of submitting the offer.

d) The client may only use the edited document for the purpose specified by her. In the event that the client uses the document for a purpose other than the agreed purpose, the contractor shall not be liable in any way, even if the service provided is contrary to the general rules for language services.

e) Unless otherwise agreed, proofreading and editing services shall be provided by the contractor in electronic form.

f) If the client wishes for a particular technology to be used, she must inform the contractor of this and – if this is not a standard application for language service providers – allow the contractor access to the desired technology.

g) The contractor’s services do not include corrections of bibliographies or references. If noticed by the contractor during the process of editing a document, obvious errors in direct quotations may be pointed out but will not be removed.

h) The contractor assumes no liability for the factual or content-related accuracy of a document and is not obliged to correct content-related errors, inconsistencies or deficiencies in a text. Furthermore, the contractor shall not be liable for the success or failure of a proofread or copy-edited document. Despite the contractor’s obligation to provide a service of the highest standard, a completely error-free result cannot be guaranteed.

Prices, additional conditions for invoicing 

a) The prices for the respective language services shall be determined in accordance with the rates (price lists) of the contractor applicable to the respective type of service rendered.

b) The basis for calculation shall be the basis agreed in each case, e.g. source text, hourly rate, number of pages, number of characters.

c) A cost estimate shall only be deemed binding if it has been prepared in writing and after presentation of the documents to be processed. Cost estimates which are quoted in any other form shall always be regarded only as entirely non-binding guidelines.

d) The cost estimate is drawn up to the best of the contractor’s knowledge but may be subject to change. Should costs increase by more than 15% after the order has been placed, the contractor shall inform the client immediately. In the case of unavoidable cost overrun of up to 15%, a separate notification is not required, and these costs can be invoiced to the client without notification.

e) Unless otherwise agreed, changes to the requested service or additional services shall be invoiced at reasonable prices.

f) Reasonable additional charges may be made for express and weekend work, which shall be agreed accordingly.

g) The contractor is entitled to demand an appropriate down payment in advance. 

h) If partial payment (g. delivery of partial services or payment in advance) has been arranged between the client and the contractor, the contractor shall be entitled, in the event of payment delay on the part of the client, to suspend work on current services for this client without legal consequences for the contractor until such time as the client meets her payment obligations. However, the contractor shall inform the client immediately of the suspension of work. 

Dates, delivery 

a) The delivery date shall be arranged between the contractor and the customer. The delivery date shall form an essential part of the contract accepted by the contractor. If no delivery date has been arranged, the service shall be provided within a reasonable period of time. If the delivery date cannot be met, the contractor must inform the client immediately and state the date by which the service will be provided.  

b) A prerequisite for compliance with the delivery date is the timely provision of all documents to be provided by the client to the specified extent (e.g. source texts and all necessary background information) and in the file format specified, as well as compliance with the agreed payment terms in the case of delivery of partial services or similar and other obligations. If the client does not fulfil her obligation to provide and pay on time, the delivery period shall be extended accordingly by the period by which the client was late in providing the contractor with the required documents. In the case of a transaction for delivery by a fixed date, it is the responsibility of the contractor to assess whether the agreed delivery date can be met even if the client is late in providing the documents. If this results in additional charges for express and weekend work, the contractor shall inform the client of this immediately. If the client cannot be reached, these additional charges shall be due if they are necessary in order to comply with the fixed date transaction. 

c) If the agreed service is not carried out for reasons for which the client is responsible, e.g. because the client does not provide the documents to the contractor or does not provide them on time, the contractor is entitled to a cancellation fee, which is not subject to judicial mitigation, in the amount of 50% of the order value of the agreed service or partial service.   

Force majeure 

a) In the event of force majeure, the contractor shall notify the client immediately. Force majeure entitles both the contractor and the client to withdraw from the contract. However, the client shall compensate the contractor for expenses already incurred or services already rendered.  

b) Force majeure shall be deemed to include: work disputes, acts of war, civil war, occurrence of unforeseeable events which demonstrably have a decisive effect on the contractor’s ability to deliver the service as agreed and similar events.  

secrecy/data protection

a) The contractor undertakes to maintain secrecy with regard to all business matters of the customer which come to her knowledge, in particular business and trade secrets.

b) Confidentiality is limited to 5 years after termination of the contractual relationship.

c) The contractor is entitled to process data transmitted to her or otherwise entrusted personal data within the scope of the purpose of the contractual relationship and to store this data even after the end of the contractual relationship if this storage or processing is necessary for the fulfilment of the service or of legal obligations (e.g. data for invoicing). After expiry of this period, the data will be deleted. 

d) Insofar as the client’s communication details are concerned (e.g. e-mail address, telephone number), the client agrees that these contact details may be processed and stored and that messages may also be sent to them for advertising purposes within the meaning of § 107 of the Austrian Telecommunications Act (TKG). This consent may be revoked by the client at any time.

e) The client also has the right, under the conditions of the provisions of the Data Protection Act, to demand the deletion of her data. However, this right shall only be granted if the contractor has no legal obligation to store the personal data.

Liability for deficiencies (warranty)

a) All deficiencies must be adequately explained and proven in writing by the client (error protocol). This must be done within one week after delivery of the service.

b) The client shall grant the contractor a reasonable period of time and the opportunity to rectify and improve her service in order to remedy or eliminate the deficiencies. If the shortcomings are remedied by the contractor within the reasonable period of time, the client has no right to a price reduction.

c) If the contractor allows the reasonable period of time to pass without remedying the defect, the client may withdraw from the contract (rescission) or demand a reduction of the remuneration (price reduction). In the case of minor defects, however, there is no right to withdraw from the contract.

d) Warranty claims do not entitle the client to withhold the entire invoice amount, but only an appropriate part of it; in such a case the client also waives the possibility of compensation.

e) The transmission of texts by means of data transfer (such as e-mail etc.) shall be carried out by the contractor in accordance with the current state of the art. However, no guarantee or liability can be assumed by the contractor for defects and impairments arising in this process due to the technical circumstances (such as breach of confidentiality obligations, damage to files, etc.), unless there is at least gross negligence on the part of the contractor.

Copyright

a) The contractor is not obliged to verify whether the client is entitled to edit the source texts or have them edited. The client expressly warrants that she has all rights necessary for the delivery of the service.

Payment

a) Unless otherwise agreed, payment shall take place upon delivery of the language service and after invoicing.

b) The contractor shall be entitled to demand a reasonable down payment in advance.

c) In the event of non-compliance with the terms of payment agreed between the client and the contractor (e.g. advance payment), the contractor shall be entitled, after prior notification, to suspend work on the client’s other requested services until the client meets her payment obligations. This also applies to services for which a fixed delivery date has been arranged. On the one hand, no legal claims shall arise for the client as a result of the associated suspension of work and, on the other hand, the rights of the contractor shall not be prejudiced in any way.

Salvatory clause

a) The invalidity of individual clauses of these terms and conditions shall not affect the validity of the remainder of the contract between the client and the contractor.

b) Should a clause be or become invalid or unenforceable, both parties undertake to replace it with a legally permissible, valid and enforceable clause which comes as close as possible to the economic intention of the clause to be replaced.

Written form

a) All amendments, supplements to these General Terms and Conditions and other agreements between the client and the contractor must be in writing.

Applicable law and place of jurisdiction

a) The place of performance for all contractual relationships subject to these terms and conditions is the contractor’s place of business.

b) The court with factual jurisdiction at the contractor’s registered business location shall have local jurisdiction to decide on all legal disputes arising from this contractual relationship.

c) Austrian law shall apply.