General Terms and Conditions of plan a Partnerschaft

These terms apply to all contracts for consulting, training, workshop, facilitation and coaching services between plan a Partnerschaft (hereinafter “plan a”) and its clients.

Our offerings are addressed exclusively to entrepreneurs within the meaning of section 14 BGB, to legal entities under public law and to special funds under public law. The client warrants that it concludes the contract in the course of its commercial or independent professional activity or as a legal entity under public law.

Individually agreed arrangements take precedence over these terms. Deviating or supplementary terms of the client do not become part of the contract, even if we do not expressly object to them, unless we expressly agree to their application in written form.

Unless expressly designated otherwise, our offers are binding for 30 days from the date of the offer. A contract is concluded when the client accepts the offer in written form, at the latest when plan a begins to deliver the services.

We provide our services as a service contract within the meaning of section 611 BGB. What we owe is the professional performance of the agreed activity, not a specific economic or organisational outcome. Consulting, training and coaching take effect in interaction with the organisation and the people involved; a particular result can therefore not be guaranteed.

We do not provide legal, tax or medical advice. Where legal questions are touched upon, this constitutes an ancillary service within the meaning of section 5 of the German Legal Services Act (RDG). Coaching is not psychotherapy and does not replace medical or psychotherapeutic treatment.

The services are delivered by the partners of plan a. For individual parts of a project we involve consultants from the plan a network who act as legally independent entrepreneurs with their own place of business and who organise their work freely. The professional design, the choice of approach and the quality assurance of the overall engagement are the responsibility of the partners of plan a.

plan a is the client’s contracting party and is responsible for the proper delivery of the services.

Individual people named in the offer are named according to current planning. If a planned person is not available, we agree an equivalent staffing or a new date with the client.

The client provides the information, rooms, technology and contact persons required for delivery in good time and in suitable form. Delays or additional effort caused by missing or late cooperation are not at our expense and may be charged separately.

The number of participants agreed in the offer applies. Exceeding it requires our consent and may make an adjustment of the concept and the fee necessary. Falling below it does not affect the agreed fee.

For on-site events the client provides suitable rooms and equipment; for virtual formats a functioning technical environment. Disruptions originating in the client’s sphere do not entitle the client to reduce the fee.

The fee agreed in the offer applies. All prices are exclusive of statutory value added tax.

Invoices are payable in full within 14 days of the invoice date. In the event of late payment we charge default interest of nine percentage points above the base rate as well as the flat fee under section 288 (5) BGB.

The client may only offset claims that are undisputed, legally established or arising from the same contractual relationship. The client has a right of retention only to the extent that it is based on the same contractual relationship.

In addition to the agreed fee we charge travel expenses in the documented amount from the consultant’s place of residence (train journeys in 2nd class with BahnCard 50, flights in economy class, mileage at 0.30 euro per kilometre driven) as well as subsistence costs according to effort and receipt.

Travel expenses passed on are part of the remuneration and are charged plus statutory value added tax.

Workshops and training sessions

For multi-day events the rates apply per cancelled event day.

Coaching sessions

Percentages refer to the fee agreed for the respective date.

The following applies in both cases: what matters is the receipt of the cancellation in written form by us. Against the above amounts we credit expenses saved as well as anything we earn, or maliciously fail to earn, by using the freed-up time otherwise. The rates stated are lump sums; the client remains entitled to prove that no damage at all has occurred or that it is substantially lower. We remain entitled to prove higher damage.

If a date is rescheduled by mutual agreement instead of cancelled, no cancellation fees apply, provided the replacement date falls within 6 months. In the event of short-notice unavailability for important reasons, in particular illness of the person to be coached, we reschedule a coaching session once free of charge.

If we are prevented from delivering the services for reasons beyond our responsibility, we inform the client without delay and offer a replacement date. Fees already paid are refunded to the extent that the service has not been delivered.

Events of force majeure – in particular natural events, epidemics and pandemics, official orders, strikes or the unavailability of the venue – release both parties from their obligation to perform for their duration. No cancellation fees apply in this case. The parties work towards rescheduling by mutual agreement; if delivery on site is not possible, the event may be converted into a virtual format by mutual agreement. Documented expenses already incurred are to be reimbursed.

Contracts for individual events end when the event has been delivered. In the case of contracts covering several dates or a longer period, either party may terminate the contract without notice for important reasons.

The right of termination under section 627 BGB for services of a higher nature remains unaffected. In the event of termination we are entitled to remuneration for the services delivered up to that point; otherwise section 628 BGB applies. For dates already firmly scheduled that cannot be used otherwise, the cancellation rules under clause 9 apply accordingly.

Terminations must be given in written form.

Copyright and rights of use in all documents, concepts, presentations and materials created by us remain with us. Upon payment of the fee the client receives a simple, unlimited in time and non-transferable right to use these materials for internal purposes within its own organisation. Passing them on to third parties, publishing them or using them for the client’s own training requires our prior consent in written form.

Work results produced by participants in the course of an event – such as flipcharts, photo documentation and result documentation – are at the client’s free disposal. Materials provided by the client remain its property.

We treat all information we receive in connection with our work as confidential and do not pass it on to third parties. This also applies to consultants from the plan a network whom we involve for the respective engagement and whom we oblige accordingly.

The client likewise treats the concepts, materials, methods and fee conditions provided by us as confidential.

The confidentiality obligation continues beyond the end of the contract. It does not apply to information that is publicly known or becomes known without a breach of this agreement, that was already known to a party beforehand, or whose disclosure is ordered by law, by authorities or by a court. In the latter case we inform the client in advance, as far as legally permissible.

Confidentiality in coaching and team development

If coaching is commissioned by a company, confidentiality also applies towards the client: the content of individual sessions is not reported. Feedback to the client is given exclusively in a form agreed with the person coached and in anonymised form. The client acknowledges that this confidentiality is a prerequisite for the effectiveness of the coaching and waives any further information.

The limits of confidentiality follow from the statutory exceptions set out above. There is no professional right to refuse to give evidence for coaching.

Recordings of events, including in virtual formats, are permitted only with the prior consent of everyone involved.

The client undertakes not to engage the consultants deployed in the course of the cooperation directly for comparable services during the term of the contract and for twelve months thereafter without involving us. For each case of breach a contractual penalty of 10,000 euro is agreed. The assertion of further damage remains unaffected.

An engagement based on a business relationship that already existed before the start of our cooperation remains unaffected.

We are liable without limitation in cases of intent and gross negligence as well as for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health.

In cases of simple negligence we are liable only for the breach of a material contractual obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance the client may regularly rely. In this case liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract, but at most to the net fee agreed for the engagement concerned. Any further liability is excluded. Liability under the German Product Liability Act remains unaffected.

Decisions the client takes on the basis of our advice are the client’s own responsibility.

Claims of the client against us become time-barred one year after the statutory start of the limitation period. This does not apply to claims based on intent, gross negligence or fraudulent concealment, to claims for injury to life, body or health, or to claims under the German Product Liability Act; the statutory periods apply in those cases.

We name the client as a reference only with the client’s prior consent.

Both parties process personal data as independent controllers within the meaning of Article 4 (7) GDPR, in particular contact and participant data. Our privacy policy applies.

Should we in an individual case process personal data on the client’s instructions, the parties will conclude a separate data processing agreement pursuant to Article 28 GDPR.

For clients established in another member state of the European Union, the tax liability passes to the recipient of the service pursuant to section 3a (2) of the German VAT Act (reverse charge procedure); for this purpose the client provides us with its VAT identification number. For events outside Germany we assess the VAT treatment case by case and state it in the offer.

Amendments and additions must be made in written form. Individual contractual arrangements always take precedence; they are also effective without any particular form.

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The place of performance is Hamburg. The place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from and in connection with this contract is Hamburg, provided the client is a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law. We are entitled to bring proceedings at the client’s general place of jurisdiction as well.

Should any provision be invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions remains unaffected.