Prices
Terms and Conditions of Trading
1. General
These terms and conditions of trading (referred only as “Terms” from here on):
• are written in plain and easy-to-understand English and should be read using the ordinary everyday meaning;
• should not be construed in any way as to try and give a word, phrase or expression a different meaning to the ordinary everyday meaning;
• are a complete and exclusive statement of the agreement between TradeLitho Services and the Customer for TradeLitho Services to supply goods or services from time to time to the Customer;
• supersede all understandings or prior agreements, whether written or oral, and all representations or other communications;
• apply whenever business is conducted between you and us;
• in no way confer on any third party the right to enforce any of the Terms of this agreement in accordance with the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
TradeLitho Services provides trade printing and pre-press services and other products to its customers in the printing and graphic arts industry. If you become our Customer and you are not in the print and graphic arts industry, it is your responsibility to become fully aware of this industry and its processes and limitations. The relationship between the Customer and TradeLitho Services is professional in nature and the Customer is therefore deemed to be knowledgeable about the technical aspects of the printing industry and its systems, procedures, practices, processes and limitations. The Customer has an obligation to ensure that it and its employees or agents are sufficiently knowledgeable about such matters and cannot rely on ignorance or doubt as a defence in any dispute or question that may arise.
Any handwritten or typed amendments (or any other defacement) to these Terms do not form part of these Terms nor an amendment to them and must be disregarded in their entirety.
Headings within these Terms are for guidance and do not imply any more than what is within the text of these Terms.
2. Definitions
The following words and phrases have special meanings in these Terms:
• “TradeLitho Services”, “the Company”, “we”, “us” or “our” refers to TradeLitho Services, its subsidiaries and divisions, including any other person or company acting as an authorised representative or lawful agent of TradeLitho Services;
• “Customer”, “you” or “your” refers to the person, business or company from whom orders for the supply of goods or services are received and with whom TradeLitho Services enter into a lawfully binding contract;
• “a periodical” is a publication that is issued in a series (usually, but not necessarily, on a regular basis), such as a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly or six-monthly magazine;
• “suitable for the purpose intended” shall include ensuring that a computer file is of the correct format and correct type for its intended use. For example, colour bitmap images must be supplied as “cmyk tiffs”; therefore “rgb tiffs” or “jpeg” files are not “suitable for the purpose intended”.
3. Variations
Variations to these Terms:
• may only be made if we expressly notify you in writing of a variation to this complete and exclusive agreement;
• shall not apply to any order that is in progress.
Any proposed alternative terms, conditions or a proposal to vary these Terms in any form submitted by you (for example, on your purchase order) shall not be valid, nor shall any action by us (including the acceptance of an order purporting to be in accordance with any other terms or conditions) be construed as meaning that any alternative terms or conditions have been accepted.
4. Periodical publications
If we have agreed in writing to print a periodical publication:
• we shall produce that periodical for an agreed minimum (or fixed) period;
• neither party shall be able to give notice to terminate the contract during that minimum or fixed period;
• after the minimum or fixed period either party shall be able to terminate the contract by giving the required written notice. Notice required to terminate the contract shall be one month in the case of periodicals published monthly or more frequently, or three months (or at least one issue) in all other cases. If there are any sums due or payable by you to us that remain unpaid and overdue or if you have exceeded a credit limit applied to your account and that credit limit has been notified to you:
• we may terminate or suspend the execution of any contract for the printing of periodicals by giving you written notice until such time as you pay all sums TradeLitho Services;
• you shall not be permitted to have the periodical printed elsewhere without our written consent;
• you shall compensate us for all losses, costs and loss of revenue that arise as a result of the contract being suspended or terminated by us;
• you may not give notice to terminate the contract.
5. Price, estimates and orders
We will:
• provide you with an estimate of the price to be charged for a particular order if you request one before an order is placed;
• provide such estimates based on our current costs of production;
• try to ensure that an estimate is valid for 28 days, although we may amend any estimate if it is necessary to do so.
It is your sole responsibility to:
• request an estimate before placing an order;
• confirm any price before placing an order and to eliminate any doubts you may have over the accuracy of any price before placing an order (including prices printed in any literature or published electronically).
If, however, a price has not been expressly agreed at or before the time an order is placed we shall charge you in accordance with our normal pricing structure and you shall not subsequently dispute the price charged. Estimates that we supply are not offers to enter into legally binding contracts, but are merely indications of the price that we charge to undertake a particular type of work. It is your sole responsibility to ensure that the specification or description of the product or service that you are ordering is correct and will meet your requirements. We are not responsible for checking whether or not the product or service that you have asked us to supply is suitable for your own purposes.
6. VAT and other taxes
All charges, estimates given and orders accepted are on a basis that they exclude Value Added Tax (VAT) or any other taxes, duties, royalties and any other charges imposed by legislation. If any such tax, duty, royalty or charge becomes payable on the sales price, we shall have the right to charge that amount.
7. Payment terms and late payment charges
You must:
• pay all amounts by the date they become due;
• not exceed any credit limit that we may apply to your account from time to time;
• make regular progress or stage payments on any order that takes longer than 28 days to complete;
• pay a charge equivalent to interest on amounts that are unpaid by their due date at a simple interest rate of 24% per annum and calculated on a daily basis from the date of despatch of the goods or the date on which the goods were made available for collection;
• pay a charge of £25 for your each and every payment by cheque that is returned to us unpaid by your bank.
At our sole discretion, we may insist that you:
• pay a deposit or the full amount when the order is placed or at some time before the goods are delivered or collected;
• make a payment to ensure that you do not exceed any credit limit that may be applied to your account (which shall include orders placed but not yet invoiced).
We may:
• notify you from time to time of any changes to the dates by which amounts will become due, although any change will not apply to amounts already TradeLitho Services;
• add a finance charge to the total value of any invoice representing the interest that would accrue should that invoice be paid one month after its due date. However, if we do so we shall offer a cash discount of an equal amount to the finance charge if you pay the invoice by its due date. You shall indemnify us for the costs involved in pursuing any legal or debt collection actions against you (including taking the advise of a solicitor or barrister, charges made by a debt recovery agency, any bailiff costs or time spent and costs incurred by our employees and/or partners in preparing and pursuing that legal action) to recover monies owed by you or from any third party who has given a guarantee or indemnity against any amounts owed by you. You also agree that any legal proceedings shall be dealt with by an appropriate Court of Law whose geographical location shall be of our choosing and which shall be within the locality of one of our offices or places of business.
8. Cancellation of orders
If you cancel an order after we have commenced work on it, you shall be charged the full order value or such lower amount as we may (in our sole discretion) determine.
9. Preliminary work
You may request that we carry out some form of preliminary work before agreeing to place a firm order. All work carried out at your request, whether experimentally or otherwise, shall be charged at our normal rates. Such work is chargeable whether or not a prior estimate of the price of such work was given to you.
10. Print-ready copy, computer files and viruses
You must ensure that:
• copy or artwork supplied to us in “print-ready” or final format is clear, legible, suitable for its intended purpose and in accordance with any specification that we may have published or notified to you;
• computer files supplied to us to be used in the production of artwork and/or printed work are suitable for the purpose for which they are intended, and that you “pre-flight” and thoroughly check those files to ensure their suitability. Your lack of knowledge of file types and file formats or any such excuse is not sufficient reason for supplying computer files which are not suitable for the purpose intended; We will charge you for any additional work which we deem necessary where copy, artwork or files are not suitable for the purpose intended, whether supplied to us directly by you or by a third-party on your behalf.
You must also ensure that:
• any disks or files supplied are free from computer viruses and you shall ‘virus check’ all files before supplying these to us. This applies whether the files are supplied on computer disk, tape, by direct data transfer or via the Internet.
You will indemnify us against:
• the cost of any loss of, damage to, and restoration of any of our data or computer systems caused by a virus, together with the costs of removing such virus(es);
• any claims, costs and expenses arising from the infection with such a virus, including any amounts paid on a lawyer or solicitor’s advice in the settlement of any claim (including with a third party to whom a virus may have spread).
11. Proofs and artwork
You are responsible for:
• clearly, concisely, specifically and adequately conveying your requirements to us;
• ensuring that any originated artwork is suitable and adequate for your needs and purposes;
• thoroughly, properly and completely checking any proof for errors or omissions;
• clearly marking any necessary amendments on a proof;
• giving us your complete and absolute approval of a proof in a written form that has been approved by us;
• giving us authority to proceed to print your work. If you inform us in writing that you intend to waive the right to receive a proof (and we agree that a proof will not be provided), we shall incur no liability whatsoever for any errors not corrected prior to printing.
After we have submitted a proof, we may charge extra if:
• you make alterations or changes to the original concept design or content, and these changes necessitate additional work by us;
• you change the style, type or layout if you had previously left it to our judgement and discretion;
• you ask us to supply additional proofs.
12. Copyright, working materials and customer’s property
We shall:
• exclusively own the copyright in any artwork produced by us, including the copyright in the way in which a work is presented or designed and in the content material in any work where that content has been created by us (this excludes artwork created by you where we merely make amendments or alterations to that artwork at your request and where those amendments or alterations are slight or incidental in nature and do not change the substance of the original design);
• exclusively own all working materials (files, disks, papers, bromides, plates etc) used to create or maintain work that we have undertaken for you;
• unconditionally license you to use, reproduce or reprint a design or work that we have undertaken for you and for which we own the copyright;
• be permitted to use a facsimile or copy of your work in any promotional material that is produced with the sole intention of furthering our business. Unless you expressly request otherwise, we may include copies of such work with any promotional material that is distributed to third parties, but we shall not re-sell your work.
We shall not:
• own the copyright in the content of any material not created by us;
• own the copyright in any proprietary logos, text, illustrations or photographs supplied to us by yourselves or other third-party copyright holders.
• be obliged at any time to give our working materials (files, disks, papers, bromides, plates, or any other items), or a copy of them to you;
• be obliged to maintain copies of artwork or work that we have undertaken for you either in a computerised format or in a hard copy format.
You shall:
• not use a copyright design or work that we have undertaken for you to produce a new or subsequent issue (or an amended past issue) without our prior written permission;
• be responsible for obtaining all necessary authorities to reproduce pictures, photographs, artwork, or similar, and you shall indemnify us and our agents from any liability that may arise from any claim arising thereof.
All property supplied by you to us shall, while it is in our possession or is in transit to or from you or your premises, be deemed to be at your risk. This shall include property belonging to a third party that you have loaned to us. Whilst every care is taken, neither our agents nor us can accept any responsibility or liability for loss or damage to artwork, photographs, transparencies, or other items.
13. Illegal or unlawful matter
We shall:
• not be required to print any matter which, in our opinion, is or may be of an illegal or libellous nature, an infringement of the proprietary or other rights of any third party (whether or not this fact was or is known at the time of acceptance of the order), or which may be prejudicial or detrimental to the good of our business;
• be indemnified by you in respect of any claims, costs and expenses arising out of any libellous matter or any infringement of copyright, patent, and design or of any other proprietary rights contained in any material printed, or work undertaken, for you. The indemnity shall extend to any amounts paid on a lawyer or solicitor’s advice in settlement of any claim.
14. Company imprint
We shall not append our imprint to any artwork if you have supplied that artwork digitally in its final form. If we undertake artwork or origination work for you, we shall not append our imprint to any work unless you specifically request otherwise. If any work is required by law to carry the imprint of the printer it shall be for you to make sure that any regulations or requirements are properly and fully met. You shall indemnify us for any failure to notify us of this obligation.
15. Quantities
We shall make every endeavour to deliver the correct quantity ordered by you, although because of the processes involved we may sometimes be unable to supply the exact number of copies of any item requested. If we are unable to supply the correct quantity ordered by you, supply no less than 95 per cent of the quantity for work in one ink colour only and 90 per cent for other work, we shall deduct an amount from the agreed price in respect of any shortage, to be calculated in accordance with the methods employed to obtain the original order value and taking into account fixed and variable cost elements of that calculation.
16. Materials supplied by you
If you supply any materials (paper, plates, and so on) to be used in the production process, we may:
• reject any of those materials supplied or specified by you that appear to us to be unsuitable;
• charge for additional costs incurred if materials are found to be unsuitable during production.
We will take every care to secure the best results, but responsibility will not be accepted for imperfect work caused by defects in or unsuitability of materials so supplied or specified. Materials supplied shall be in quantities as we shall agree with you, but must always be adequate to cover both normal and possible abnormal spoilage during the printing process. Materials that are not used shall be returned to you when the job is complete and, where possible, shall be in the same state and condition as when they were originally supplied to us by you. You shall pay any additional carriage charges that we have to incur to return those unused materials to you.
17. Quality of work
In accordance with the Sale of Goods Act we must supply goods that are of a “satisfactory quality”. This is defined by the Act as being a “standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking account of the description of the goods, the price (if relevant) and all the other relating circumstances...the quality of goods includes their state and condition and the fitness for all the purposes for which goods of the kind in question are commonly supplied [and their] appearance and finish....”
You shall:
• make sure that the work produced by us in general is of a standard that is acceptable to you before you enter into any contract with us;
• ask to be given samples of similar work produced by us and materials used to help you assure yourself of the standard of our work;
• be entitled to reject any work that is clearly defective, sub-standard and which does not comply with the requirements of the Sale of Goods Act as regards the description and the quality or fitness of those goods, although you shall not reject goods in any instance where the goods are not of a “satisfactory quality”, when that failure is so slight that it is not reasonable to reject them.
You shall not be entitled to:
• reject any work because, in your opinion or in the opinion of another third party, the standard of our work produced may not be similar to that of any other particular printer;
• reject goods in cases where you have supplied copy, artwork or computer files which were not “suitable for the purpose intended” and where we did not realise that those files were not suitable before the printing or production of the goods; The use by you of any of the goods or work supplied, or any part of those goods or work, shall constitute your full acceptance of the goods or work. You may not then reject those goods at a later date, and any earlier rejection shall be deemed to have been withdrawn.
18. Delivery or collection of goods
If we are required to deliver goods we shall:
• despatch the goods within a reasonable time after the work is completed;
• reasonably ensure that the carrier, the method of carriage and how the goods are prepared or packaged for carriage are suitable such that the goods shall not be lost or damaged in normal transit.
If we are required to deliver goods you shall:
• accept delivery of goods when tendered;
• be charged for that delivery unless the price agreed for the work includes delivery charges, although you shall always be charged extra for expedited delivery or for delivery to more than one address;
• ensure that the goods are adequately insured during transit, although if you so desire we will arrange such insurance with the carrier on the your behalf but in doing so we will be deemed to be acting as your agent;
• indemnify us for any loss as a result of any failure by you to take delivery when tendered (this does not affect our right where your neglect or refusal to take delivery of the goods amounts to a repudiation of the contract).
For the purposes of the Sale of Goods Act:
• carriage arranged by us shall be on your behalf and delivery to you is deemed to have been made (for the purposes of the Act) when we give the goods to a carrier;
• the place of delivery shall be our premises at which the finished goods are made ready for collection or despatch. If we are not required to deliver goods, you shall collect the goods from our premises upon notification that they are complete. In some cases, it may be necessary for us to make the goods available for collection or delivery in installments, and you shall accept the goods in such installments when tendered. Please note that you will be liable for storage charges should you fail to collect the goods from our premises upon notification or you fail to take delivery where we are required to deliver the goods to you. Storage charges will be based on £45 (excluding VAT) per cubic metre (or part cubic metre) per week (or part week).
19. Liability arising from delay
We shall not be liable for any loss (whether actual, consequential or third party) arising from delay in the performance of any order or of finished goods in transit. Time shall not be the essence of any order notwithstanding any action by us that purports to guarantee a delivery or collection time or date. Time-sensitive or dated material does not in itself make time the essence of any contract, and you have a responsibility to allow sufficient “slack time” when you place any order to allow for any delay that may occur.
20. Claims and queries
All claims and queries:
• regarding the goods supplied (including shortages, errors, and so on) must be made by you in writing in a form specifically approved by us, and must be submitted to us within three working days of the date of delivery or collection;
• regarding an invoice must be made by you within ten working days of invoice date, and queries regarding non-delivery must be made by you within five working days of the invoice date;
• will not normally be entertained unless they are made within these time limits;
• may only be made outside these time limits in instances where it is not possible for you to comply with the notice requirements provided that advice (where required) is given to us and the claim is made as soon as reasonably possible. The inability to check the goods supplied by reason of lack or insufficient manpower or suitably qualified or authorised personnel within your organisation is not a valid reason not to comply with these time limits.
If you have the right to reject any goods:
• you must firstly obtain our written consent and then return those goods in their entirety to us at your expense within five working days;
• returning goods without consent shall in no way extinguish or reduce your liability to us for full payment of the goods and for late payment charges and interest. We shall not be liable in respect of any claim unless the notification requirements above have been complied with. In addition, any claim or counterclaim made against us in a Court of Law must be commenced by you within six months of the date on which we provided a service to you, dispatched goods to you or on which goods were made available for collection.
21. Reservation of title
Title on any goods supplied shall only pass to you when paid for in full, taking into account any charges and interest relating to late payment. Until title to the goods passes you shall:
• keep the goods secure, in good condition and adequately insured;
• not use the goods supplied to form part of, or be used in the manufacture of, any other product not specified by us in writing;
• keep the goods separately in such a way that they may be identified or retrieved.
If you subsequently sell the goods:
• you will be acting as our agent subject to these Terms;
• we shall have a lien over the money(s) resulting from such sale;
• you shall indemnify us from costs or expenses arising from the sale, and we shall in no way whatsoever bear any liability from the sale.
22. Colour reproduction
We will:
• make every effort to obtain the best possible colour reproduction on your work given the limitations of the production process;
• not guarantee an exact match in colour or texture between your original colour photograph(s) (whether digital or otherwise), artwork (whether digital or otherwise), transparency(ies) or previous printed work and the final printed article because of the processes involved.
You must:
• ensure that colour photograph(s) (whether digital or otherwise), artwork (whether digital or otherwise) or transparency(ies) that are submitted are suitable for the work in hand as we cannot accept any liability for unsatisfactory results caused by unsuitable or inferior originals whether you have supplied these digitally or otherwise;
• order a lithographic colour proof, in writing. When placing an order and you require colour reproduction of a specific standard you should inform us in writing if you wish to check the colour reproduction prior to printing, but please note that this will be charged as an extra.
23. Force majeure
We shall be under no liability if we are unable to carry out any provision of a contract for any reason beyond our control, including (without limiting the foregoing): acts of God, legislation, war, fire, flood, draught, failure of power supply, mechanical breakdown, lock out, strike or other action taken by employees in contemplation or furtherance of a dispute, or an inability to procure materials required for the performance of the contract. During the continuance of such a contingency, you may by written notice elect to terminate the contract but you shall pay for work done and materials used or specially purchased, but subject thereto shall otherwise accept delivery if and when available.
24. Insolvency or bankruptcy of customer
Without prejudice to other remedies, we shall have the right not to proceed further with any order and be entitled to charge for work already carried out (whether completed or not) and materials purchased for you if:
• you cease to pay your debts in the ordinary course of business or cannot pay your debts as they become due; or
• being a company, you are deemed to be unable to pay your debts, or have an administration order or a winding-up petition issued against you; or
• being an individual, partnership or unincorporated body, you commit an act of bankruptcy or have a bankruptcy petition issued against you. This charge shall be an immediate debt due to us.
25. Revisions or changes
From time to time we may make revisions or changes to these Terms. However, any revisions or changes will only apply to orders placed after the date shown at the end of these Terms. Our previous Terms will apply to any orders placed before that date.
26. Applicable law
These Terms, and any orders placed with us, shall be made, and construed, in accordance with, and governed by, the Law of England
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