These General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter ‘GTC’) apply to all offers, contracts and services provided by Empiricon to its clients (hereinafter ‘Client’) in connection with the conduct of survey and consultancy projects.
The GTC govern the rights and obligations of the parties.
Individual written agreements, namely quotations and order confirmations, shall take precedence over these GTC in the event of any conflict.
Any deviating or supplementary terms and conditions of the Client shall only apply insofar as Empiricon has expressly agreed to them in writing. They shall not form part of the contract even if Empiricon does not expressly object to them.
The contract is concluded upon written confirmation of the order by Empiricon or upon commencement of the provision of services.
Quotations from Empiricon are binding for the period of validity stated in the quotation. Unless otherwise stated, the period of validity is 90 days from the date of issue.
Empiricon provides its services with due care and in accordance with the recognised standards of its field of expertise. The obligation is to provide services with due care, not to achieve a specific result. The scope of the services is set out in the relevant quotation or order confirmation.
The client shall provide Empiricon, in good time and free of charge, with all information, documents, data and access required for the provision of services.
Delays or additional costs attributable to late, incomplete or inadequate cooperation on the part of the client shall not be borne by Empiricon. Any resulting additional costs shall be invoiced separately on the basis of actual expenditure.
Invoices from Empiricon are due for payment within 30 days of the invoice date, without any deductions.
Empiricon is entitled to issue payments on account or partial invoices for projects in line with the progress of the project.
Unless otherwise agreed, the prices quoted are in Swiss francs.
No, all prices are exclusive of VAT.
The prices quoted are exclusive of expenses.
Expenses include additional costs for travel outside the city of Bern (SBB tickets from Bern, 1st class, at the Half-Fare card rate) as well as any printing, packaging, dispatch and postage costs or translation costs.
Expenses will be invoiced in addition to the agreed fee, based on actual costs incurred.
Once the payment deadline has passed without payment being made, the client shall be in default without the need for a further reminder. From the date of default, interest on arrears of 5 per cent per annum shall be payable (Art. 104 of the Swiss Code of Obligations). We reserve the right to claim further damages.
Agreed dates for workshops and training courses are binding. Postponements and cancellations must be made in writing; notification by email is sufficient. The date on which Empiricon receives the notification shall be decisive for calculating the deadline.
In the event of cancellation or rescheduling of a workshop or training course, the following compensation applies, calculated from the agreed date of the event:
These amounts are deemed to be lump-sum compensation for the costs incurred by Empiricon and the loss of earnings.
Any preparatory work already carried out, as well as any expenses already incurred or irrevocably committed – such as booked travel or venue costs – will in all cases be charged additionally.
Cancellations and postponements of projects must be made in writing; notification by email is sufficient. The deadline is calculated based on the date on which Empiricon receives the notification in relation to the agreed project start date.
In the event of a project cancellation, the following cancellation fees apply, calculated from the agreed project start date:
No additional cancellation fee applies if the project start date is postponed. However, Empiricon will charge for services already provided up to the time of the postponement, as well as for expenses already incurred or irrevocably committed. If the project is cancelled following a postponement, the above cancellation charges apply, calculated from the newly agreed project start date.
The above amounts are considered a lump-sum compensation for the costs incurred by Empiricon and the loss of revenue.
Empiricon processes personal data provided to it or collected by it in the course of a project exclusively on behalf of and in accordance with the client’s instructions, and solely for the purpose of carrying out the agreed project services. Any use of this personal data for other purposes, in particular for Empiricon’s own purposes, is excluded – subject to benchmarking in accordance with clause 8.
Empiricon takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure data security and requires the staff involved, as well as any third parties engaged, to comply with data protection and confidentiality requirements.
Raw data relating to a project is anonymised or deleted upon completion of the project, provided there is no statutory or contractual obligation to retain it.
The client remains responsible for ensuring the project complies with data protection law, in particular for informing survey/project participants.
Where the parties agree to data processing on behalf of another party within the meaning of the applicable data protection legislation, the provisions of any separate data processing agreement shall take precedence over Empiricon’s Privacy Policy (Data Protection) and these General Terms and Conditions.
Notwithstanding the purpose limitation set out in clause 7 and as an expressly agreed exception to the prohibition on use for its own purposes, Empiricon is entitled to transfer aggregated, i.e. anonymised, survey results from the survey conducted into its own benchmark database and to use them for benchmarking purposes.
The subject matter of benchmark use consists exclusively of survey results, i.e. the analyses produced as part of the survey.
Benchmarking is carried out in accordance with the following conditions:
Provided that the values transferred to the benchmark database are fully anonymised, no personal data remains. Empiricon is entitled to maintain and use the benchmark database even beyond the term of the individual project contract; the anonymised benchmark values may remain in the benchmark database even after the contractual relationship has ended.
A clear distinction must be made between the project-specific analysis for the client, on the one hand, and Empiricon’s use of the benchmark, on the other. Empiricon’s use of the benchmark does not affect the contractually agreed project-specific service for the client.
The client shall review the delivered results, analyses and reports upon receipt and notify Empiricon in writing of any defects within 14 days of delivery. If no notice of defects is given within this period, the services shall be deemed to have been approved.
In the event of defects reported in good time and on valid grounds, Empiricon shall rectify them within a reasonable period. Any further claims are governed by Clause 10.
Empiricon is liable for damages only in cases of wilful misconduct or gross negligence. Liability for slight negligence is excluded to the extent permitted by law.
Liability for the conduct of vicarious agents is excluded to the extent permitted by law.
To the extent permitted by law, Empiricon’s liability is limited in amount to the fee agreed for the project in question (excluding VAT and expenses).
Liability for indirect damage, consequential damage and loss of profit is excluded to the extent permitted by law.
If Empiricon is prevented from performing its services due to circumstances beyond its control, namely force majeure, official measures, pandemics or the failure of communication networks, its obligations to perform shall be suspended for the duration and to the extent of the hindrance. Claims by the client arising from any resulting delays are excluded to the extent permitted by law.
The parties undertake to keep the other party’s confidential information secret and to use it exclusively for the purpose of performing the contract.
The duty of confidentiality does not apply to information which is or becomes generally known, which was already known to the receiving party beforehand or was independently developed by it, or which must be disclosed pursuant to due to a mandatory statutory or regulatory requirement.
The duty of confidentiality continues beyond the termination of the contractual relationship. The permitted use of benchmarks in accordance with clause 9 shall not be deemed a breach of confidentiality.
The client is granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable right of use for the analyses, reports and recommendations for action produced by Empiricon as part of the project, for the client’s own internal purposes.
The methods, models, frameworks, questionnaires, benchmark systems, templates, tools and the underlying know-how developed by Empiricon remain the exclusive intellectual property of Empiricon. Results developed specifically for the client and project results may be used by the client without restriction for their own internal purposes. Empiricon retains the right to further develop and use the general findings, methods and experience gained during the project, as well as anonymised and non-client-specific elements, for its own purposes and in other projects.
Should any individual provision of these General Terms and Conditions be wholly or partially invalid or unenforceable, the validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected. The invalid or unenforceable provision shall be replaced by a valid provision that most closely approximates the economic purpose of the original provision.
Empiricon is entitled to amend these Terms and Conditions at any time. The customer will be notified of the amendments in writing. They shall be deemed to have been approved unless the customer objects in writing within four weeks of being notified of the amendment.
Amendments and additions to this contract must be made in writing (e.g. by email), unless expressly agreed otherwise.
The assignment of the customer’s claims arising from the contractual relationship requires the prior written consent of Empiricon.
The contractual relationship is governed exclusively by Swiss law, to the exclusion of conflict-of-laws rules.
The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from or in connection with the contractual relationship is Bern (Switzerland). Mandatory statutory places of jurisdiction remain reserved.