Terms of use - Business Unity South Africa

About These Terms

These Terms are the basis of and comprise the whole agreement between you and BUSA regarding and governing your use of this Website. You may not use the Website unless you agree to abide by these Terms so it is very important that you read these Terms and any other documents referred to in these Terms very carefully. You will signify your agreement with these Terms and to be bound by them if you do either of the following:

By using the Website in any way, in which case you understand and agree that BUSA will treat your Website use as acceptance of these Terms from the moment you first begin to access the Website; or
Click to accept or agree to these Terms where BUSA offers an option to do so available to you.
If you do not agree with any provision contained in these Terms, please do not use the Website in any way.

How to Interpret These Terms

These Terms contain a number of words and phrases which have specific meanings and most of which are capitalised. The Glossary, below, contains these words and phrases. We also apply certain rules when interpreting these Terms and BUSA’s Interpretation Guide, also below, sets out these interpretive rules.

Important Provisions in These Terms

These Terms contain provisions which limit BUSA’s exposure to legal liability and even make you responsible for a variety of acts. Some of these provisions do have the effect of limiting your rights in law and conferring obligations on you by virtue of your agreement to these Terms of use. You can find these provisions in the Liability section below. The Content available on the Website and the Website itself are made available to you for limited uses. BUSA explains which uses of the Website and the Content made available on or on the Website are appropriate and which are not in the Website use and reliance section below. It is therefore important that you familiarise yourself with these provisions before you access the Website and that you not access the Website if you do not agree to abide by those provisions.

Legal Age and Capacity

You may not use the Website and may not accept these Terms if you –

lack the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract with BUSA;
are a person who is not permitted to access or use this Website under the laws of the country in which you are resident or from which you access this Website; and/or
require the consent of a guardian or parent to competently agree to these Terms and have failed to obtain that consent.

By using the Website and/or the Content you represent and warrant that you are of full legal age, or are emancipated or have your guardian’s consent to enter into a contract being these Terms.

Changes to These Terms

BUSA reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to, and you agree that BUSA may, amend these Terms at any time, in any way and from time to time. BUSA will publish details of the proposed amendments to these Terms in a notice on Website. This notice will identify the specific amendments BUSA proposes making to these Terms and the date on which these proposed amendments will become effective. Amendments to these Terms will bind you with effect from their effective date. It is your responsibility to review these Terms regularly and to ensure that you agree with any amendments to these Terms. If you do not agree with any amendments to these Terms, you may no longer use the Website.

Website Use and Reliance

Notwithstanding the subject matter of the Content provided on the Website, your reliance on the Content for any purpose whatsoever and to any extent may only be on the basis set out in these Terms.

Not an Offer

BUSA presents the Content on the Website for informational purposes only. The Website does not cater for any particular user’s investment objectives, financial situation, or means. The Content is specifically not to be construed as –

a recommendation; or
an offer to buy or sell; or
the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any security, financial product, or instrument; or
to participate in any particular trading strategy in any jurisdiction either at all or in which such an offer or solicitation, or trading strategy would be illegal.
Although the Content is based upon information that BUSA considers reliable and which BUSA endeavours to keep current, BUSA does not represent and has not necessarily verified that Content is accurate, current, or complete and it should not be relied upon as such.

Not Advice

BUSA has not determined that the Content is suitable for any particular purpose or set of requirements whatsoever, other than as a general reference, and has not necessarily disclosed all risks relating to the Content or its subject matter. The fact that BUSA has made the Content available to you is neither a recommendation that you enter into a particular transaction or a representation that any service described on the Website is suitable or appropriate for you. Any discussion of the risks associated with Content, particularly with respect to any BUSA service should not be considered to be a disclosure of all risks or complete discussion of the risks which are mentioned. You should not rely on the Content for professional advice (including, but not limited to business, financial, investment, hedging, trading, legal, regulatory, tax, or accounting advice) or as a basis for any investment, transactional or similar decisions you make or which are made on your behalf without first consulting with your preferred professional or business advisor (who may include your attorney, and tax, accounting and investment advisors).

Changes to the Website

In addition, the Website may include technical, typographical or other inaccuracies and you are urged to contact BUSA to confirm all information contained on the Website before placing any reliance on it (although you should remain mindful of the Website use and reliance section above). BUSA periodically makes changes to the information presented on the Website and these changes will be incorporated in new editions of this Website. BUSA reserves the right to alter or amend any criteria or information set out in this Website without notice.

BUSA’s Content License

BUSA grants you a personal, revocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-commercial, non-transferrable and non-exclusive licence to use BUSA’s Content on the Website through a generally available web browser, mobile device or application. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling you to use BUSA’s Content on the Website, in the manner permitted by these Terms and does not extend to scraping, spidering, crawling or other technology or software used to access data without BUSA’s express written consent. In the event we revoke this license, you may no longer use the Website or make any use of BUSA’s Content. Unless BUSA has given you specific written permission to do so, you may not transfer, through an assignment of rights, sub-licence or otherwise, your rights to use the Content or the Website or otherwise transfer any part of your rights to use the Content or the Website. To the extent that any copying, reproduction, distribution, transmission, display, broadcasting or publishing of any Content is expressly permitted (such permission to be interpreted in its most restrictive sense) you may do so, provided that all trademarks, trade names and all copyright, ownership, proprietary and confidentiality notices included on or in relation to the Content are retained and displayed without alteration or modification and not in any manner obscured or removed. You are further required, as a condition of this Content license, to attribute BUSA as the Content’s source by publishing the page on the Website from which you obtained the Content together with any publication of the Content as permitted by these Terms. You acknowledge that you do not acquire any ownership rights in any BUSA Content or rights to use the Content except where explicitly permitted to do so.

Your Conduct

You agree to comply with all local laws, rules and regulations which govern your Website use as well as to adhere to generally acceptable Internet and communications etiquette. In this regard, without being limited to the examples listed below, you agree not to:

take any action aimed at deceiving or misleading any person, attempt to impersonate or misrepresent your affiliation to any person or forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of anything posted or transmitted on the Website;
submit any person’s personal information to the Website without that person’s informed consent to do so;
gather or attempt to collect personal information about 3rd Parties without their knowledge or consent for commercial, political, charity or similar purposes;
violate the privacy of any person or attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Website or any other network, including (without being limited to) through hacking, password mining or any other means;
use the Website to post or transmit anything which is defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, harassing, harmful, hateful or which carries child pornography, religious or racial slurs or threatens or encourages bodily harm or the like or which may violate any person’s personality rights;
copy, modify, create an adaptation of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the Website’s source code or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless we have specifically told you that you may do so, in writing;
use the Website in any manner which could damage, impair, overburden or disable the Website or interfere with any other user’s Website use;
use the Website to post anything which contains viruses or any other destructive features, regardless of whether or not damage is intended;
use the Website to make fraudulent offers to sell or buy products, items or services or to offer or solicit for any type of financial scam such as “pyramid schemes” and “chain letters”;
use the Website in a manner that may infringe the Intellectual Property rights (for example copyright or trade marks) or other proprietary rights of others; and/or
otherwise use the Website to engage in any illegal or unlawful activity.
Should you engage in any one or more of the above practices, which shall be determined in BUSA’s sole discretion (and which decision shall be final), then BUSA shall be entitled, without prejudice to any other rights BUSA may have, to:

without notice, suspend or terminate your entitlement to use the Website;
hold you liable for any costs BUSA incurs as a result of your misconduct; and/or
notwithstanding the Privacy Policy referred to below, disclose any information relating to you, whether public or personal, to all persons affected by your actions.

Your Privacty

For information about BUSA’s data protection practices, please read the Privacy Policy. This policy explains how and under what conditions BUSA processes your personal information, and protects your privacy, when you use the Website. You agree that BUSA may process your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Policy.

Information Transmitted on the Internet

Information transmitted through Electronic Communications may be susceptible to monitoring and interception and you bear the risk of such submissions and you waive any claims you may have for any Losses you may suffer as a result information transmitted to BUSA and which may be monitored and/or intercepted. BUSA reserves the right to request independent verification of any information transmitted to BUSA using Electronic Communications. Please be aware that any unsolicited confidential or proprietary information sent to BUSA using Electronic Communications cannot be guaranteed to remain confidential. If you need to send such information to BUSA and are concerned about the security of this information please contact BUSA and BUSA will advise you of the most appropriate transmission method.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

You irrevocably agree that the law of the Republic of South Africa shall govern your use of this Website and these Terms. You further consent to the jurisdiction of the South Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, South Africa as well as the Western Cape High Court, Cape Town, South Africa in respect of disputes which may arise out of your use of the Website and these Terms. You also irrevocably and unconditionally consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court even though the value of a claim which we may have against you may exceed the ordinary monetary jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court.

Termination

You may terminate your contract with BUSA on the basis of these Terms at any time by ceasing your use of the Website entirely. The Terms will continue to apply until either you or BUSA terminates its contract with you on the basis of these Terms on the one or more of the grounds set out below. BUSA may at any time, terminate its contract with you in the form of these Terms if:

You have breached any provision of the Terms (or have acted in manner which clearly shows that you do not intend to, or are unable to comply with the provisions of the Terms); or
BUSA is required to do so by law (for example, where the provision of this Website to you is, or becomes, unlawful); or
the Website provision is or becomes, in BUSA’s opinion, no longer commercially viable.
Those provisions of these Terms which are intended to survive termination of these Terms shall do so.

Liability

Disclaimers and Liability Limitations

Your use of and reliance on the Website is entirely at your own risk. The Website is provided “As Is” and “As Available”. To the fullest extent permissible by law, BUSA disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including without limitation to the implied warranties that the Content published to the Website is fit for any purpose other than as a reference work in respect of the Content provided on the Website. While BUSA takes reasonable precautions in BUSA’s operation of the Website, you agree that neither BUSA or BUSA’s Associates shall be liable in respect of any Losses however arising and whatever the cause, in particular pursuant to and in furtherance of these Terms, your Website use or from your inability to use the Website. BUSA will use reasonable endeavours to make the Website available to you, and keep the Website available to you at all times. However, you agree that BUSA shall not be liable in respect of any Losses caused by or arising from the unavailability of, any interruption to your Website use (either in part or as a whole) for any reason whatever.

Indemnity

You hereby indemnify BUSA and BUSA’s Associates from any Losses due to or arising out of your use of the Website or your breach of these Terms.

3rd Party Websites

The Website contains Content that BUSA’s employees and selected industry experts create. Some of this Content may be directed to or appear on the Website using 3rd Party services. Your use of those 3rd Party services may be subject to both these Terms (where appropriate) and the terms and conditions applicable to those 3rd Party services. You agree that it remains your obligation to familiarise yourself with the 3rd Parties’ terms and conditions and to comply with both them and these Terms. In the event there is a conflict between these Terms and a 3rd Party’s terms and conditions, these Terms shall prevail for the purposes of your Website use. Links to and from the Website from and to 3rd Party Websites do not constitute BUSA’s endorsement of any 3rd Party services or 3rd Party Websites Content nor does BUSA necessarily associate itself with their owners or operators. You are solely responsible for identifying and familiarising yourself with any terms and conditions which will govern your relationship with such a 3rd Party. BUSA has no control over 3rd Party Websites and you agree that BUSA is not responsible or liable for any 3rd Party services or 3rd Party Websites Content or for any Losses caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with your use of or reliance on any such Content, information, goods or services available on or through any such 3rd Party Websites. You agree that where you use 3rd Party Websites, you do so entirely at your own risk. Your interaction, correspondence or business dealings with 3rd Parties which are referred to or linked from the Website or otherwise on the Website is similarly entirely at your own risk and are solely between you and the 3rd Party including the acquisition, disposal, payment and delivery of any goods or services, and any Terms, conditions, warranties or representations associated with such interaction, correspondence or business dealings.

Rights Infringements

If you are of the view that your rights have been infringed through unlawful Website use by users or 3rd Parties, you may address a complaint to BUSA which satisfies the following requirements and/or sets out the following information:

the full names and address of the complainant;
the written or electronic signature of the complainant;
identification of the right that has allegedly been infringed;
identification of the material or activity that is claimed to be the subject of unlawful activity;
the remedial action required to be taken by the Website provider in respect of the complaint;
telephonic and electronic contact details, if any, of the complainant;
a statement that the complainant is acting in good faith;
a statement by the complainant that the information in the take-down notification is to his or her knowledge true and correct.

Please address your notifications to: BUSA Legal Email: busa@busa.org.za. BUSA will investigate the complaint on receipt of a complete and properly formulated complaint notice and will take appropriate action where necessary. Such action may include, but is not limited to, removing the offending Content from the Website and/or taking appropriate steps against the offending user.

Severability

Any provision in these Terms which is or may become illegal, invalid or unenforceable shall be ineffective to the extent of such prohibition or unenforceability and shall be treated pro non scripto (as if it were not written) and severed from these Terms, without invalidating the remaining provisions of these Terms.

Documents and Notices

BUSA chooses the addresses specified below for all communication purposes under these Terms, whether in respect of court process, notices or other documents or communications of whatsoever nature.

Busa May Monitor Your Electronic Communications

Subject to the provisions of the RIC Act, you agree to permit BUSA to intercept, block, filter, read, delete, disclose and use all communications you send or post to or using the Website and/or to BUSA’s staff and/or employees. You agree and acknowledge that the consent you provide above satisfies the “writing” requirement specified in the ECT Act and in the RIC Act.

Miscellaneous

Nothing in these Terms shall create any relationship of agency, partnership or joint venture between you and BUSA and you shall not hold yourself out as BUSA’s partner or agent or as being in a joint venture with BUSA. Unless BUSA requires otherwise, electronic signatures, encryption and/or authentication are not required for BUSA’sElectronic Communications to be valid.

Interpretation Guide

In these Terms, headings are for convenience and BUSA doesn’t intend for them to be used to interpret the Terms. If, in the Terms, BUSA refers to a party who is liquidated or sequestrated (or has been through a comparable process under a different legal system), then the Terms will also be applicable to and binding on that party’s liquidator or trustee, as the case may be. Unless BUSA indicates to the contrary in these Terms, any references to any gender includes the other genders, a natural person includes an artificial person and vice versa, the singular includes the plural and vice versa. When BUSA specifies any number of days in the Terms, the number of days excludes the first day and includes the last day unless the last day falls on a Saturday, Sunday or statutory public holiday in the jurisdiction which governs these Terms, in which case the last day shall be the next succeeding day which is not a Saturday, Sunday or statutory public holiday. Generally speaking, references to a “day” are references to typical business days. All annexures, addenda and amendments to these Terms form an integral part of these Terms and, therefore, BUSA’s contract with you.