1. General terms and conditions of use
This page (together with the documents referred to on it) tells you the terms and conditions of use (the "Terms") on which you may make use of our website (http://barstandardsboard.org.uk ) and of My Bar (the "Portal") which is made available through the following websites:http://www.barcouncil.org.uk and http://barstandardsboard.org.uk
These websites and the Portal (together, "our Site") are owned and operated by The General Council of the Bar ("we/us/our"), the Approved Regulator of the Bar of England and Wales, which discharges its regulatory functions through the independent Bar Standards Board. Our principal offices are at 289-293 High Holborn, London WC1V 7HZ. Our VAT Number is 404524779.
Please read these Terms carefully before you start to use our Site. By using our Site you indicate that you accept the Terms and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these Terms, please refrain from using our Site.
From time to time we may update these Terms. When we do, we will publish the changes on our Site. If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use our Site, as continuing use of our Site shall be deemed to be your acceptance of the updated Terms. If material changes are made to these Terms, we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on our Site.
2. Accessing Our Site
2.1 Access to our Site is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our Site without notice. We will not be liable if for any reason our Site, or any part of it, is unavailable at any time for any period
2.2 From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of our Site, including the entire Portal, to registered members.
2.3 If you use your My Bar membership number or other user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our validation and security process and procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any third party. We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these Terms.
2.4 When using our Site, you must comply with the provisions of our acceptable use policy at Clause 4 of these Terms.
2.5 You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our Site. You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our Site on your behalf through your internet connection are aware of these Terms, and that they comply with them.
3. User eligibility
3.1 We will only knowingly provide services to parties that can lawfully enter into and form contracts under applicable law.
3.2 By requesting a service on our Site, including booking an event, making an enquiry, paying for your practising certificate etc,, you warrant that you are legally capable of entering into binding contracts and that you are at least 18 years old.
3.3 It is a condition of membership of our Site that all registration details provided are and remain for the duration of your membership true, accurate, current and complete. As a member, you agree to notify us, by emailing us at [email protected] of any changes to your registration details.
3.4 During the registration process for My Bar a member will be asked to create a username and password. We reserve the right to refuse to grant you a username that we believe, in our sole discretion, impersonates another person, infringes somebody else's trademark or other intellectual property right, or is offensive, defamatory or otherwise inappropriate.
4. Acceptable Use Policy
4.1 This acceptable use policy sets out the terms between you and us under which you may access our Site. This acceptable use policy applies to all users of, and visitors to, our Site. Your use of our Site means that you accept, and agree to abide by, all the policies in this acceptable use policy. Failure to comply with this acceptable use policy constitutes a material breach of these Terms, upon which you are permitted to use our Site, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:
• Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our Site;
• Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to our Site;
• Issue of a warning to you;
• Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis resulting from the breach (including, but not limited to, all legal costs);
• Further legal or disciplinary action against you; or
• Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities or regulators as is reasonably necessary.
We exclude liability for actions taken in response to breaches of this acceptable use policy. The actions described above are not limited and we may take any other action we reasonably deem to be appropriate.
4.2 You may not:
(a) use our Site for any illegal activities or for a purpose which is not authorised by these Terms;
(b) use our Site in any way that may damage or disrupt another user's computer;
(c) modify, create derivative works from, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any technology used to provide the services;
(d) upload, transmit or post any computer viruses, worms or Trojan horses, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful files, programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware;
(e) do anything to disrupt, damage, impair, interrupt, slow down or effect the functionality of our Site;
(f) impersonate another person or entity or create a false identity for the purpose of misleading any other user or member as to the identity of the sender or the origin of a message;
(g) do anything that would interfere with another user's ability to use or enjoy our Site or the services or that would discourage a user from using our Site or engaging our services; or
(h) send, upload, post or otherwise make available any solicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional materials, "junk mail", "spam", "chain letters", "pyramid schemes" or any duplicative or unsolicited messages.
4.3 You are responsible for keeping your user name and password for My Bar secret and secure. Please report any unauthorised use of your account to us at [email protected] as soon as possible.
4.4 A My Bar member's account enables you to use the services including booking an event, making an enquiry, paying for your practising certificate etc. You will be held responsible for all activities on your member's account.
4.5 We may revise this acceptable use policy at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we make, as they are legally binding on you. Some of the provisions of this acceptable use policy may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our Site.
5. Copyright
6.1 All rights, including copyright and database rights, in our Site and its contents, and in the services, are owned by or licensed to us, or otherwise used by us as permitted by applicable law or the copyright holder.
You are entitled to view, copy, download and store temporarily such content from http://www.barcouncil.org.uk on one computer hard drive, print no more than one copy (no further copies of such material may be made by any means) and store such material in electronic format on disk, provided it is for your own personal non-commercial use. The intellectual property rights in such material shall be retained by us.
You are entitled to view, copy, download and store temporarily such content from http://barstandardsboard.org.uk and store such material in electronic format on disk, without being restricted to one copy, provided it is for your own personal non-commercial use. The intellectual property rights in such material shall be retained by us.
6.2 You may not remove any copyright, trademark or intellectual property notices contained in the original material from any material downloaded or copied from our Site.
6.3 Copying, distributing or any use of the material contained on our Site for any commercial purpose is prohibited without prior written consent.
6.4 You may not create a database by systematically downloading substantial parts of our Site.
6.5 We grant you a limited revocable license to access and use our Site and the services for their intended purposes, subject to your compliance with these Terms. This license does not include the right to collect or use information contained on our Site for the following purposes:
(a) to create derivative works based on the content of our Site; or
(b) to download or copy our Site (other than page caching).
6.6 If you use our Site in a manner that exceeds the scope of this license or you breach these Terms, we may revoke the license granted to you and reserve all our rights.
6. Trademarks
All names, images, logos identifying us or our services are our proprietary marks. All third party names, logos, images or branding relating to a company, product or service contained on our Site are the trademarks, service marks and trade names of their respective holders. Unless you have obtained the holders' explicit written consent (either from us or the appropriate third party), we do not give permission for any use of any such trademark, service mark or trade name by any person other than the holders. Any such use may constitute an infringement of the relevant holder's rights.
7. Viruses, hacking and other offences
You must not misuse our Site by knowingly introducing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our Site, the server on which our Site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our Site. You must not attack our Site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will cooperate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our Site will cease immediately.
8. External links
Our Site may contain links to other websites, which are outside our control. We have not reviewed such websites and they are provided solely for information purposes. You hereby acknowledge that such websites are independent from our Site, that we have no control over the content of the linked third party websites and that you visit such third party websites entirely at your own risk. We accept no responsibility for the content of such websites nor do we accept responsibility or liability for any losses or penalties whatsoever that may be incurred as a result of your use of any links to any other websites or reliance on the content of any website to which our Site is linked or to which you are directed.
9. Framing, linking and deep-linking
You may not frame, link or deep-link our Site to any other website without our prior written consent. Should you wish to frame or to set up a link / deep-link to our Site please e-mail us at [email protected]
10. Complaints
If you have any complaints about our Site, we want to hear from you so we can improve it. Please e-mail us at [email protected] and we will consider your comments carefully.
11. Our rights
11.1 Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved to the Bar Council or Bar Standards Board.
11.2 The Bar Council or Bar Standards Board will always seek criminal prosecution of any individual who, or organisation which, seeks to use the Bar Council's or Bar Standards Board's name, material, logos or trademarks for unlawful purposes and, where appropriate, will take action within the civil courts of any applicable jurisdiction against any individual or organisation discovered to be using the Bar Council's or Bar Standards Board's name, logos, trademarks or our Site for unauthorised or unlawful purposes.
11.3 The failure by the Bar Council or Bar Standards Board to exercise any right or remedy under these Terms shall not constitute a waiver of that right or remedy.
12. Data Protection
12.1 Our Site uses cookies to enable recognition of previous visitors and to facilitate visitors’ use of the website. Please see our separate Cookies Notice for further information.
12,2 Please see our separate Privacy Statement for information on how we handle personal data.
13. Disclaimer and warranties
13.1 We have made every effort to ensure that the information contained on our Site is accurate and up-to-date at the time of publication. However, you hereby acknowledge that some of the information is provided by third parties and/or members of our Site. We do not guarantee the quality, accuracy, timeliness, completeness or fitness for purpose of the information provided on our Site. No responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of us for any errors, omissions or inaccurate information on our Site or its content. We are not responsible for how the information is used, how it is interpreted or what reliance is placed on it.
13.2 The information and content of our Site is for general information only and is not intended to, nor does it, constitute legal or other professional advice or services or a recommendation to purchase any product or service upon which a specific decision should be made. It is provided for general information purposes only and does not address your particular circumstances. Accordingly, you should not rely upon the content of our Site as a substitute for proper professional advice and should consider seeking your own independent advice.
13.3 We do not accept any responsibility for the results of any action taken on the basis of the information provided on our Site and all warranties, including implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose, non infringement and accuracy are excluded to the fullest extent that they may be excluded under applicable law. To the fullest extent permitted by law the Bar Council or Bar Standards Board will not be liable for any claims, costs, penalties, loss (whether direct, indirect or consequential and whether economic or special loss), damages or expenses arising from the use or from the inability to use our Site or from reliance on information or on advice contained on our Site or from any unauthorised access or alteration to our Site by a third party.
13.4 Without prejudice to your statutory rights, our Site and all information, text, names, images, pictures, logos, links and icons and other materials (without limitation) are provided 'AS IS' and on an 'AS AVAILABLE' basis without representation warranty or endorsement, express or implied. The Bar Council and Bar Standards Board have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of the materials contained on our Site but to the fullest extent permitted by law exclude any warranty, whether express or implied, by statute at common law or otherwise, relating to our Site and the material contained on our Site.
13.5 We do not guarantee that our Site (or any part of it) or any content is compatible with your computer equipment nor that our Site (or any part of it), or its server, is free of errors or viruses, worms, bugs or Trojan horses, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful.
13.6 We will try to make our Site available but cannot guarantee that our Site will operate continuously or without interruptions, or be error-free, and can accept no liability for its unavailability. We will provide the service using reasonable skill and care and we make no warranties other than those made expressly in these Terms. We hereby disclaim to the extent permitted by law all other express or implied warranties (including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose and merchantability) other than those which cannot be excluded by law.
14. Limitation of liability
14.1 Except for liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or in relation to death and personal injury arising from negligence, and subject to clause 14.4, neither party shall be liable to the other or any person for any indirect, incidental, punitive or consequential damages arising from the use of our Site, any information contained on our Site or our services displayed on our Site, including, without limitation use or loss of use, loss of data, profits, revenue, business or anticipated savings, whether in action of contract, negligence or other tortious action arising out of or in connection with the use of our Site.
14.2 Except for liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or in relation to death and personal injury arising from our negligence, and subject to clause 14.4, we will not be responsible or liable to you or any third party for:
(a) the content of websites to which our Site provides links and we do not accept responsibility or liability for any losses or penalties whatsoever that may be incurred as a result of your use of any links to any other websites or reliance on the content of any website to which our Site is linked or to which you are directed;
(b) any loss arising from use of the information on our Site;
(c) any loss, disruption, damage of your data or computer system which you may suffer as a result of the transmission of any errors or viruses, worms, bugs or Trojan horses, any distributed denial-of-service attack or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our Site, or to your downloading of any material posted on them, or any website linked to them or other such destructive feature via our Site; and/or
(d) for deleting any or other materials relating to your use of the service on our servers or otherwise in our possession following termination of your use of our Site and/or the service in accordance with Clause 14.4.
14.3 Except for liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or in relation to death and personal injury arising from our negligence and subject to clauses 14.1, 14.2 and 14.4, our liability to the you or any third person for any and all damage or loss that may arise from the use of our Site, any information contained on our Site or our services displayed on our Site shall not exceed the greater of (i) the fees paid by you to us during the twelve months immediately preceding the event that gave rise to such liability or (ii) £1,000 (one thousand pounds sterling).
14.4 The exclusions and limitations of liability in this Clause 14 do not affect your statutory rights as a consumer which cannot under applicable law be excluded by agreement.
15. Termination
15.1 Either party may terminate these Terms upon notice to the other if the other is in material breach of these Terms. If you are in material breach of these Terms we may (in our sole discretion) upon notice to you:
(a) suspend, limit your access to or terminate your use of our Site and/or the service; and/or
(b) suspend, limit your access to or terminate your account.
15.2 If you or we terminate your use of our Site and/or the Service, we may delete any materials relating to your use of the Service on our servers or otherwise in our possession.
16. Severability
If any of the terms and/or conditions of these Terms should be determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable, it/they shall be severed and deleted from these Terms and all other terms and/or conditions shall remain in full force and continue to be binding and enforceable.
17. Entire agreement
Without prejudice to your or our rights in respect of fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, these Terms constitute the entire understanding and agreement between you and us regarding the subject matter of these Terms and supersede all prior and contemporaneous agreements and understandings between you and us regarding the subject matter of these Terms.
18. Rights of third parties
Notwithstanding anything else in these Terms, the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply to any contract between you and us and no contractual rights are conferred on any third parties.
19. Governing law and jurisdiction
19.1 These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England. The courts of England shall, subject to clause 19.2 below, have exclusive jurisdiction over any claims, dispute or matter arising under or in connection with these Terms.
19.2 We shall retain the right to bring proceedings in the courts of the country of residence of any user of our Site.
