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Membership Terms & Conditions

  1. Membership of the Business Exchange is on a rolling annual contract. Membership entitles you to access the Business Exchange benefits.
  2. If you decide to leave the Business Exchange:
    • Please give at least 6 months' written notice to us, with the notice expiring on the renewal date of your membership.
    • You will still have access to our services during the cancellation period.
    • If you fail to give six months' notice, you may be charged a cancellation fee equivalent to the monthly membership for every month exceeding the renewal date.
  3. You must ensure that, at all times:
    • You comply with the law
    • You comply with all codes of practice that apply relate to you.
    • To pay the membership fee within 30 days of the date of invoice. If payment is not received, your access to Business Exchange services may be suspended until payment is received and cleared.
  4. Please ensure that the information you provided when applying for membership is correct and if it was not or is not correct we could cancel your membership without refund.
  5. We may suspend or expel you in the following unlikely events:
    • If you are no longer meeting Business Exchange's membership criteria
    • If you act in a way that is inconsistent with or affects the reputation of the Business Exchange of our owners: Warrington Borough Council
  6. To protect our intellectual property, if you are no longer a Business Exchange member, you must remove all references to the Business Exchange in your advertising, stationery, promotional material, website etc. prior to the expiry of the notice period.
  7. When signing up to membership for the Business Exchange, you will automatically receive the monthly Business Exchange newsletter.

Please note that, in the terms set out below, when we refer to:

  • The Business Exchange, we, us or our it refers to and includes Warrington Borough Council, and
  • References to statutes, or regulations and similar include them as subsequently amended or re-enacted.

Prevention of Corruption

You have agreed that you will not and your staff will not directly or indirectly:

  1. offer, promise or give any person working for or engaged by us a financial or other advantage to induce or reward that person to do something or perform improperly; or
  2. agree to get any financial or other advantage as an inducement or a reward to improperly perform in connection with our terms;
  3. committing any offence under:
    • The Bribery Act 2010;
    • Any law concerning defrauding the Business Exchange or attempting to defraud or conspire to defraud the Business Exchange; and
    • Section 117(2) of the Local Government Act 1972.

You shall have an anti-bribery policy to prevent such corruption and enforce it.

The section on Dispute Resolution below will not apply to any dispute relating to this section on prevention of corruption.

Equality, Diversity and Discrimination

You shall not unlawfully discriminate within the meaning and scope of any Law relating to discrimination (whether in race, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, age or otherwise).

If any Court, Tribunal or the Equalities and Human Rights Commission should make any finding that you have unlawfully discriminated against any person then you shall take all necessary steps to prevent the recurrence of such unlawful discrimination.

You shall conform (in so far as is permitted by law) to the principle of equality of opportunities.

Confidentiality

The Business Exchange and all members of the Business Exchange shall keep confidential any confidential information identified as such and shall use all reasonable endeavours to prevent disclosure.

This section will not apply to any disclosure of information:

  • required by law;
  • relating to information referred to in the section on Freedom of Information;
  • if such information is already generally available and in the public domain otherwise than as a result of a breach of this section;
  • to enable a determination to be made under the section on Dispute Resolution;
  • which is already lawfully in the possession of the receiving party, before its disclosure by the disclosing party, and the disclosing party is not under any obligation of confidence in respect of that information; and
  • by the Business Exchange to any other department, office or agency of the government, provided that the Business Exchange informs such recipient of any duty of confidence owed in respect of the Confidential Information.

Data Protection Act

You shall, and ensure your staff comply with any notification requirements under Data Protection Legislation and we shall both comply with all obligations arising.

If you are processing personal data as a data processor for the Business Exchange, you will have in place appropriate technical and contractual measures to ensure its security and guard against its unauthorised or unlawful processing and accidental loss or damage to personal data as required under the Seventh Data Protection Principle of the Data Protection Legislation and shall:

  • use effective security measures in respect of all electronic communications;
  • provide the Business Exchange with information we reasonably require to establish that you are complying with the Data Protection Legislation;
  • promptly notify the Business Exchange of any breach of your security measures; and
  • ensure you and your Staff do not do or omit to do anything which places the Business Exchange in breach of the law.

Freedom of Information

You acknowledge that we are subject to the requirements of Freedom of Information and you shall promptly assist and co-operate with the Business Exchange so we can comply with the Freedom of Information requirements by:

  • transferring requests for information you receive to the Business Exchange within 2 working days of that receipt;
  • provide the Business Exchange with a copy of all information in your possession within 10 working days (or such other period as we may specify) of our request for that Information; and
  • provide all necessary assistance as requested by the Business Exchange so we can respond to a request for information within the time required by Freedom of Information.

You agree not to respond directly to a request for information unless we expressly authorise it.

You acknowledge that we may, acting in accordance with Government requirements and its codes of practice on the discharge of public authorities' functions under Freedom of Information, be obliged to disclose Information:

  • without consulting with you; or
  • following consultation with you and having taken your views into account.

We shall take steps, when we reasonably can, to give you advance notice or drawing such disclosure to your attention.

You will appreciate that we may be obliged to disclose confidential information in accordance with Freedom of Information.

Dispute Resolution

If a dispute arises out of or in connection with these arrangements and under your membership of the Business Exchange you agree to follow the procedure set out in this Section (Dispute Resolution).

If one of us gives the other written notice of the dispute, setting out its nature and full particulars (Dispute Notice - which will include supporting documents) a senior officer or manager from both of us shall attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute;

If those senior officers or managers are unable to resolve the dispute within a reasonable time the dispute will be settled by mediation in accordance with the CEDR Model Mediation Procedure.

The commencement of mediation shall not prevent the commencement or continuance of court proceedings in relation to the dispute.

PLEASE NOTE:

In return for the Business Exchange (us or we) allowing you access to this website, we require you to accept these terms. If you are not prepared to agree to these terms then please immediately leave this website.

There are other terms that apply to you

There are terms relating to:

  1. Warrington Borough Council that apply to members of the Business Exchange and can be accessed below
  2. There are also terms that relate to members of the Business Exchange and can be accessed below
  3. Our Cookie Policy sets out information about the cookies on our site

We are Warrington & Co based in the United Kingdom.

Accuracy

Information on this website is provided by us in good faith and has been taken, where appropriate, from legal, trade and other sources. We believe that information on this website is reliable, but we do not represent that information on this website is accurate, complete, or fair, or designed for any specific purpose, and you should not rely on it as if it was.

Any opinions or estimates that we give on this website reflect our own judgement at the date we post it to the website.

We may change the contents of this website without notice.

Availability

We intend to make this website available to use at any time, but it may be suspended temporarily and without notice for example when there is a system failure, or due to maintenance or repair. We cannot be liable if, for any reason, the website is unavailable at any time.

Acceptable use

You agree not to post or transmit to or from this website any harmful material for example: computer viruses, logic bombs, trojans, worms, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful data.

You agree not to misuse this website or cause any problems for us or anyone using it, for example, by hacking or denial of service.

We shall always fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities and court orders that require us to disclose the identity or locate anyone who breaches these terms or acted illegally.

Secure areas

Some parts of this website (secure areas) are restricted to specified individuals and organisations (including ourselves).

You may only access the secure areas if either:

  • you have been issued with a username and password by us
  • your organisation has been issued with a username and password with authorisation for you to access it on its behalf

If you lose your username and/or password, or disclose it to a third party, you must notify us with details immediately.

We reserve the right to remove your access, or that of your organisation, or change your username, password or method of access at any time and without notice to you.

Third parties and their websites

Any mention or reference to an organisation, company or individual, whether on this website or elsewhere by links to this website shall not be an endorsement or imply approval by us or warrant by us regarding any capability, financial standing of any organisation or person, or safety of the linked address on the internet. Please also note that:

  1. We do not take any responsibility for anything occurring when you use a link.
  2. When you click on such a link you will leave this website.
  3. We only provide such links to other sites as a convenience.

Emails

If you contact us by means of an unencrypted email, or by completing a form on this website in which you provide your email address, then you consent to us contacting you by means of unencrypted email.

Please note that if you send unencrypted emails to us there is a risk that others might be able to access its contents. If you do not want this risk, please consult us to see if this is possible by other means.

Limited licence

Copyright in this website is ours or belongs to others who have licensed it to us. We can grant you a limited licence to copy by downloading or printing pages from it, but this must be only for your personal use and you are not allowed to modify any contents or incorporate them in something else or frame any contents within another website without our written consent.

Trade marks

You do not have any rights to use our trade-marks or the trade-marks that are the property of others.

Feedback and suggestions

We welcome feedback and suggestions about this website, but only if they do not contain confidential information.

Privacy

All personal information we collect on this website in accordance with our privacy and data protection policy which is included in the Warrington Borough Council terms here

Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms shall be governed by and are in accordance with English law. Disputes regarding these terms will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.