Regulations governing the use of our services

General Terms and Conditions (GTC)

1. Agreement on validity and general information

  1. All contractual relationships, deliveries and services provided by Building Information Cloud GLWG GmbH (hereinafter referred to as ‘BIC’) are based on these General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter referred to as “GTC”). These are an integral part of all contracts that BIC concludes with its contractual partners (hereinafter referred to as ‘customers’) regarding the services, uses or deliveries offered by BIC in detail. (BIC and Customer hereinafter individually referred to as the ‘Contractual Partner’ and collectively as the ‘Contractual Partners’).
  2. The GTC shall only apply if the Customer is an entrepreneur (§ 14 BGB), a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law. These GTC also apply to all future deliveries, services or offers to the customer without these GTC having to be agreed separately in each individual case.
  3. These GTC apply exclusively. Deviating, conflicting or supplementary general terms and conditions of the customer or third parties shall only become part of the contract if and to the extent that BIC has expressly agreed to their validity in writing. The customer’s or third parties’ general terms and conditions shall therefore not apply unless expressly agreed, even if BIC does not separately object to their validity in individual cases or refers to the exclusive validity of these GTC. The requirement for consent shall apply in all cases. In particular, BIC’s reference to a letter containing or referring to the general terms and conditions of the customer or a third party, as well as the unconditional performance or delivery in knowledge of the general terms and conditions of the customer or third parties, does not constitute agreement with the validity of those general terms and conditions.
  4. These GTC apply in addition to individual contracts or offers made by BIC. If and to the extent that agreements made with the customer in individual cases (including collateral agreements, supplements and amendments) contain deviations from these GTC, these shall in any case take precedence over these GTC.
  5. The remaining provisions of these General Terms and Conditions remain unaffected.
    Insofar as these General Terms and Conditions require the written form, § 126 BGB (German Civil Code) applies. Otherwise, unless individual provisions of these General Terms and Conditions expressly provide otherwise, the transmission of a copy of the respective document by telecommunication, in particular as a PDF copy by e-mail, is sufficient, provided that the copy of the signed declaration(s) is transmitted.

  6. References to the applicability of statutory provisions are for clarification purposes only. Even without this clarification, the statutory provisions shall therefore apply unless they are directly amended or expressly excluded in these General Terms and Conditions.

2. Offer and conclusion of contract

  1. The products and services of BIC displayed, advertised and offered on the BIC website thinkbic.de or in other advertising media or on other platforms do not constitute binding offers. This also applies if the customer is provided with documents, demo access, other product descriptions or examples of BIC services.
  2. The contract shall only come into effect when BIC accepts the order or commission by sending the customer an order confirmation after receiving the order or commission. Provided that the customer complies with the provisions of these GTC and pays all applicable fees on time, BIC shall grant the customer access to the cloud service. The term ‘cloud service’ refers to the provision of access to BIC’s web- and cloud-based software-as-a-service application, the use of the software, all associated support and maintenance services provided by BIC, and the associated documentation. The software is set up on a server that is accessible via the Internet. Access is via a browser after the customer has created a customer account. The access data is provided by BIC and can be customised by the customer.
  3. Individual offers from BIC are valid and must be accepted within three (3) weeks of receipt by the customer, unless otherwise specified in the offer. BIC may accept orders or commissions from the customer within four (4) weeks of receipt.
  4. The legal relationship between BIC and the customer shall be governed by the contract concluded for the provision of services by BIC, including these General Terms and Conditions. The contract fully reflects all agreements between the contracting parties regarding the subject matter of the contract. Any ancillary agreements and amendments to the concluded contract must be made in writing.

  5. Notwithstanding the third sentence of paragraph 4 above, it shall be sufficient for the conclusion of a contract if an individual offer from BIC that has not been signed by hand is signed and returned by the customer.

3. Scope of services and availability

  1. The scope of access to the cloud service for the customer, including the range of functions, scope of use and specifications, is determined by the packages ordered by the customer (e.g. Single Check, Basic, Office, Pro or Individual) in accordance with the product and service description. The intended use of the cloud service and the technical requirements are also specified in the product and service description. BIC shall inform the customer of updates to the scope of functions of the packages and of new service offerings. Customer support shall be provided in accordance with the agreements in the respective package. BIC shall process and protect the transmitted data in accordance with the provisions of these GTC and the offer and order form.
  2. BIC guarantees the following software availability: SLA availability is 99% and applies from Monday to Sunday, 00:00 to 24:00. Measurement takes place at the transfer point and covers a measurement period of one year. The software is considered available if it can be used without serious malfunctions that impair its operation. The calculation of SLA availability does not take into account downtime for maintenance purposes (e.g. maintenance windows, release changes, offline backups) or downtime due to force majeure or caused by the customer or third parties.
  3. The storage space required for the contractual use of the cloud service and the associated data processing operations shall be provided by BIC in accordance with the scope agreed in the offer and order form (Basic, Office, Pro) and for the duration agreed therein.
  4. The customer shall have no claims or rights due to temporary short-term unavailability of the cloud service.

  5. BIC’s cloud service may be continuously developed and adapted to meet the current needs of customers, take technological advances into account and ensure compliance with applicable laws. If further developments or adaptations are integrated into the cloud service as standard functions, BIC shall inform the customer appropriately of these changes by updating the functional description before they come into effect. If, as a result of these further developments or adaptations, it is no longer reasonable for the customer to continue with the order, they may terminate the order in question in writing with two (2) weeks’ notice prior to the announced changes taking effect. Otherwise, the further developments or adjustments will be automatically integrated into the cloud service and become part of its functionality. When informing the customer about the further development and adjustment of the cloud service, BIC will expressly point out this situation and the significance of its behaviour. Further developments are provided by BIC through updates and upgrades.

4. Provision of services and force majeure

  1. Unless otherwise agreed, the service shall be provided after receipt of payment of the total amount owed. Services can only be used after successful payment.
  2. The dates specified in the contract or in the offer or order confirmation from BIC are binding. The dates specified therein must be adhered to by both contracting parties. The customer is obliged to provide the details, documents and information required for BIC to perform its services as soon as possible and to take any other necessary cooperative action on its part.
  3. BIC shall not be responsible for delays in performance due to force majeure or circumstances within the customer’s sphere of responsibility and shall be entitled to postpone the provision of the affected services for the duration of the hindrance plus a reasonable start-up and planning period. BIC shall notify the customer of any delays or changes in performance due to force majeure.
  4. If one of the contracting parties is wholly or partially prevented from fulfilling its obligations under the contract due to force majeure in accordance with § 4 (6) or other circumstances which it cannot reasonably be expected to remedy economically, these obligations shall be suspended until the disruptions and their consequences have been remedied. In this case, the contracting party concerned shall not be entitled to consideration. The contractual partner concerned shall be obliged to notify the other contractual partner immediately and to take all technically and economically reasonable measures without delay to restore the conditions necessary for the performance of the contract.

  5. Force majeure is an external event caused by elemental forces of nature or by the actions of third parties that is unforeseeable according to human understanding and experience and cannot be prevented or rendered harmless by economically acceptable means, even with the utmost care that can reasonably be expected in the circumstances, reasonable care that can be expected in the circumstances, and which cannot be accepted by the affected contractual partner due to its frequency.

5. Prices, terms of payment and due date

  1. Agreed prices apply to the scope of services or delivery specified in the signed contract, or otherwise in the offer or order confirmation from BIC. Subsequent change requests and additional services (including additional or special services) may be charged separately.
  2. All prices are quoted in euros plus statutory value added tax.
  3. All invoices from BIC are payable in EURO within fourteen (14) days of the invoice date to the business account of BIC specified in the offer or order confirmation. Upon termination of the contract, access to the relevant services, including the cloud service, will be automatically suspended and all outstanding payment obligations of the customer will become due for payment immediately.
  4. Outside the European Union, additional costs may arise in individual cases for which BIC is not responsible and which must be borne by the customer. These include, for example, costs for money transfers by credit institutions (e.g. transfer fees, exchange rate fees) or import duties or taxes (e.g. customs duties). Such costs may also be incurred in relation to the transfer of money if the delivery is not made to a country outside the European Union, but the customer makes the payment from a country outside the European Union.
  5. If the customer fails to pay by the due date, interest shall be charged on the outstanding amounts at a rate of 9 percentage points above the base rate from the due date; the assertion of higher interest rates and further damages in the event of default as well as the statutory lump sum pursuant to Section 288 (5) of the German Civil Code (BGB) remains unaffected. Furthermore, BIC shall be entitled to suspend the services it provides until payment is received. BIC’s right to withdraw from an individual order shall be determined in accordance with the statutory provisions.
  6. The customer shall only be entitled to offset or exercise rights of retention if the claim used for offsetting or to assert the right of retention has been recognised in writing by BIC or has been legally established.

6. Copyright and rights of use

  1. BIC reserves the ownership and copyright of all offers and cost estimates submitted by BIC, as well as any documents and aids made available to the customer as part of an offer. The customer may not make these items available to third parties, disclose them, use them themselves or through third parties, or reproduce them without the express consent of BIC. At BIC’s request, the customer must return these items in full to BIC and destroy any copies made if they are no longer required in the ordinary course of business or if negotiations do not result in the conclusion of a contract. This does not apply to the storage of data provided electronically for the purpose of standard data backup.
  2. The services provided by BIC are legally protected. All rights to the cloud service, in particular with regard to the software, source code and object code and related confidential information, including copyright, any patent rights, trademark rights and other intellectual property rights, as well as legal claims, entitlements and titles, are exclusively reserved to BIC.
  3. BIC grants the customer a non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-sublicensable right to use the cloud service provided for internal operational purposes and the defined purpose in accordance with these GTC during the term of the agreement in accordance with the agreed package (Basic, Office, Pro). It is clarified that, irrespective of these GTC, the customer is not granted any right to use the source code of the software and that the cloud service does not contain any on-premise components for which the customer could request installation in their own IT systems.
  4. The customer may not use the cloud service beyond the permitted scope of use specified in the offer and order form or for purposes other than those defined. Unless expressly provided for in the offer and order form and exclusively for the intended use of the cloud service, it is not permitted to grant third parties access to the cloud service or to use the service for the benefit of third parties.
  5. The customer is prohibited, except to the extent permitted by applicable law, from:
    1. decompile, reverse engineer, reconstruct or analyse (e.g. reverse engineering) the source code or object code of the software, or otherwise derive it;
    2. translate, adapt, edit, create derivative versions of, or modify the software;
    3. Develop programmes based on or derived from the software or parts thereof, and distribute such programmes or make them available to third parties;
    4. use the Cloud Service in a manner that competes with the Cloud Service;
    5. Circumventing, disrupting, impairing or disabling the security precautions and identification measures of the cloud service;
    6. sell, license, transfer, assign or offer the Cloud Service or related services or rights therein to third parties for use in any way;
    7. Transferring data and information to the cloud service without sufficient authorisation;
    8. transfer illegal or harmful data, programmes or codes to the cloud service.

  6. The customer may only reproduce the software to the extent necessary for proper use and covered by the intended use. This includes loading the software into the working memory on BIC’s server, but not the temporary installation or storage of the software in the customer’s IT systems or on other data carriers or hardware used by the customer.

7. Warranty, liability, limitation period and liability for defects

  1. Unless otherwise specified in these General Terms and Conditions, including the following provisions, the customer’s warranty rights and BIC’s liability for breach of contractual and non-contractual obligations shall be determined in accordance with the statutory provisions.
  2. BIC shall be liable for damages – regardless of the legal basis – within the scope of fault-based liability in cases of intent and gross negligence. In other cases, BIC shall – unless otherwise specified in paragraph 3 – only be liable for damages resulting from the breach of a material contractual obligation; in this case, however, liability is limited to compensation for foreseeable, typically occurring damage. Sentences 1 and 2 also apply to breaches of duty by persons whose fault BIC is responsible for according to statutory provisions (e.g. vicarious agents).
  3. Liability for damages resulting from injury to life, limb or health and under the Product Liability Act remains unaffected by the above limitation of liability. Furthermore, the aforementioned limitation of liability does not apply if BIC has fraudulently concealed a defect or has assumed a guarantee for the quality of the product.
  4. The cloud service is based on AI-driven software, which means that errors may occur in isolated cases due to the lack of verification of the results by BIC. Any test results, suggestions and information provided by the cloud service are therefore not legally binding and are intended solely to support the customer. They must be checked by the customer in each individual case for feasibility, practicability, completeness and accuracy. BIC shall not be liable under this clause for any test results, recommendations, suggestions or other information provided to the customer via the cloud service or via other documents or links.
  5. BIC guarantees that the cloud service will be available during the agreed term in accordance with the functions and specifications set out in the product and service description. If the cloud service cannot be used as intended, BIC is obliged to remedy the defects in accordance with the relevant package of the order (Basic, Office, Pro).

  6. The statutory provisions apply to the limitation period.

8. Obligations of the customer

  1. The customer is obliged to cooperate to the extent necessary for the proper performance of the service. In particular, they must provide all documents necessary for the performance of the service in full and in good time, without being asked to do so, so that sufficient processing time is available.
  2. The customer may only allow authorised users to use the cloud service to the extent agreed in the contract. The access data of individual authorised users may not be used multiple times or by several people at the same time. However, the customer may transfer the access data from one person to another if the authorisations on the customer’s side change. The customer is just as responsible for the behaviour of authorised users as for their own behaviour and is obliged to ensure that they use the cloud service in accordance with the contract.
  3. Each authorised user receives access data (user name and password) for this purpose in order to confirm their identity and verify their authorisation to use the cloud service in accordance with the access rights granted. The access data must be treated as strictly confidential and protected from access by unauthorised third parties, both by the authorised users and by the customer themselves. The customer is obliged to take appropriate measures to protect the access data in accordance with the provisions of these General Terms and Conditions and to ensure its confidentiality.
  4. Authorised users such as registered service providers, subcontractors and end customers may only use the areas of the cloud service assigned to them. For the duration of the contract, BIC shall make the current version of the software available via the website to the number of authorised users agreed in the offer and order form.
  5. The customer bears sole responsibility for:
    1. the establishment and maintenance of the data connection between the customer’s IT systems and BIC’s systems, as well as for the authorisation and management of Internet access to the cloud service, the identification and authentication of authorised users, and the control against unauthorised access by unauthorised users;
    2. all activities that take place under the user names, passwords and/or user accounts of authorised users when accessing the cloud service and that result from this.
  6. The customer is obliged to inform BIC immediately of any violations of the terms of use, as well as any unauthorised use or unauthorised access to the cloud service. In addition, the customer must take appropriate measures to ensure that any unauthorised use of the cloud service is stopped immediately.

  7. If the customer fails to fulfil his obligation to cooperate or is in default of accepting the service offered by BIC, BIC shall be entitled, after setting a reasonable deadline for cooperation in writing, to terminate the contract without notice or to withdraw from it. This shall not affect BIC’s claim for compensation for additional expenses incurred as a result of the customer’s delay or failure to cooperate, or for any damage caused, even if BIC does not exercise its right of termination. If the customer is responsible for a delay or non-performance by BIC, they shall not be entitled to any compensation or reimbursement.

9. Account suspension

  1. BIC may deactivate, suspend or restrict access to the Cloud Service by the Customer and individual authorised users with prior notice and a reasonable deadline for rectifying the problem if:
    1. the customer fails to settle an outstanding amount within the specified payment period and no material breach of the payment obligation on the part of BIC is stated in writing; or
    2. the customer repeatedly (at least two (2) times) provides insufficient or no information during the support process, thereby significantly delaying the processing of the support request.
  2. BIC reserves the right to deactivate, suspend or restrict the customer’s and individual authorised users’ access to the cloud service without prior notice if:
    1. the customer commits actual violations of applicable law or there is reasonable suspicion of such violations;
    2. the use of the cloud service by the customer or authorised users compromises the security of the service or encourages third parties to compromise security; or

    3. the customer or an authorised user fails to remedy a significant breach of contract or repeatedly commits such a breach despite prior warning with a reasonable deadline.

10. Data protection, password security and customer data

  1. thinkBIC is entitled to store the data relating to the respective order electronically and to process and use this data for operational purposes in accordance with the statutory provisions and the BIC data protection regulations.
  2. The transfer of data to third parties is only permitted if this is the subject of the contract (e.g. when registering domains or similar) or necessary for the performance of the contract, or if disclosure is required by law or official order. In the context of providing and executing the cloud service, BIC may grant third parties access to the software used by the customer and the customer account, provided that this is necessary for the provision and execution of the service. BIC shall ensure that these third parties fully comply with the contractual provisions on the protection of customer data and confidentiality and enter into comparable obligations towards BIC.
  3. The contracting parties are obliged to transmit passwords, personal data and other highly sensitive information securely only.
  4. The customer has sole rights to the customer data transmitted or made accessible in connection with the cloud service. The customer is granted the right to grant BIC the exclusive right of use for the provision, further development and implementation of the cloud service as well as for the organisational processing of the data. The customer bears full responsibility for the accuracy, quality, legality and completeness of the customer data that they provide to BIC.
  5. BIC is entitled to collect, use and process usage data in anonymised and aggregated form for technical and market-related analyses, benchmarking, further development of the cloud service and for marketing purposes in connection with the cloud service.
  6. Once the customer has deleted their account, all data (project data, data on project participants and subcontractors) will be removed. The account cannot be restored. It is the customer’s responsibility to back up their data before deleting their account, not BIC’s.

  7. The legal obligations arising from the General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) and the Telecommunications Act (TKG) remain unaffected.

11. Place of jurisdiction and choice of law

  1. The contractual relationship between BIC and the customer shall be governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the provisions of international private law.

  2. For all disputes arising from or in connection with the contractual relationship between BIC and the customer (including those concerning the existence or termination of the contractual relationship), the courts at BIC’s registered office shall have exclusive jurisdiction in the first instance, to the extent permitted by law. This applies regardless of whether the customer is based in Germany or abroad.

12. Final provisions

  1. Amendments and additions to all contracts must be made in writing to be valid. This also applies to amendments to this paragraph.
  2. BIC reserves the right to amend these General Terms and Conditions, provided that the amendments are reasonable for the customer and do not affect the essential provisions of existing contractual relationships. BIC shall notify the customer of the amendments in writing at least six (6) weeks before they come into effect. If the customer does not agree to the changes, they may object in writing within one week before the planned effective date of the changes. Unless the customer objects, the changes shall be deemed approved. BIC shall expressly inform the customer of the significance of their behaviour when notifying them of the changes to the General Terms and Conditions.
  3. Should any provisions of these General Terms and Conditions or any provisions included in them in the future be wholly or partially invalid or unenforceable, or should they later lose their legal validity or enforceability, this shall not affect the validity of the General Terms and Conditions. The same shall apply if contracts between the contracting parties contain a loophole. In place of the invalid or unenforceable provisions or to fill the gap, an appropriate provision shall apply which comes closest to what the contracting parties intended or would have intended according to the meaning and purpose of the contract, provided that they considered this point when concluding this contract or when subsequently including a provision.
  4. The severability clause in Section 14(2) should not be understood as a reversal of the burden of proof, but rather as a waiver of Section 139 of the German Civil Code (BGB).