General Terms and Condi­tions

1. Appli­ca­tion

Our General Terms and Condi­tions are a compo­nent of the contract and apply to all, thus also future, deals, deliv­er­ies and services of the Gieß- Tech­nis­che-Sonderk­eramik GmbH & Co. KG (in the follow­ing named GTS) with the customer. They will be accepted by the customer to their full extent in the version valid at the time of the busi­ness trans­ac­tion. Regu­la­tions devi­at­ing from these condi­tions, espe­cially also busi­ness condi­tions of the customer, are here­with contra­dicted. We point out that it is possi­ble to accept the GTCs in the inter­net under www.gts-keramik.de

OThe company address is:

Gieß- Tech­nis­che- Sonderk­eramik GmbH & Co. KG
CEO: Andreas Müller
Koppersstr. 29
40549 Düssel­dorf

2. Offers and contract conclu­sion

2.1 All offers are always free of oblig­a­tion and non-bind­ing up to our order confir­ma­tion in writ­ing.

2.2 Collat­eral agree­ments are only valid if they are confirmed in writ­ing.

2.3 GTS expressly reserves the right to price changes, tech­ni­cal changes, mistakes, print­ing errors or inter­me­di­ate sale.

3. Prices

The prices are in Euros plus legal VAT with­out early payment discount and other deduc­tions. The prices at the time of order­ing are valid. For deliv­ery into EU coun­tries, the present VAT tax rates of the Federal Repub­lic of Germany are valid; with non-EU coun­tries, the order value will be short­ened by this amount. The custom­ary import turnover tax is to be borne by the customer. The prices given in the offers and order confir­ma­tions are non-oblig­a­tory; they are valid ex works and do not include pack­ag­ing, trans­porta­tion, postage, guar­an­teed value and VAT.

4. Payment condi­tions

4.1 Purchase price includ­ing all costs is due from account­ing.

4.2 The payments are to be made gross with­out discounts or any other deduc­tions, as long as another mode of payment has not been expressly agreed in writ­ing.

4.3 With delay of the customer, GTS is enti­tled to assert default inter­est accord­ing to the law for the accel­er­a­tion of due payments. Compen­sa­tion claims going beyond this remain unaf­fected by this.

4.4 The customer can only offset against the claims of GTS if the coun­ter­claim of the customer is undis­puted or there is a legally bind­ing title.

5. Reser­va­tion of title

5.1 Each deliv­ery ensues under reser­va­tion of title; only with complete payment of the invoice does the title trans­fer to the customer. Up to this time the goods must not be pledged, assigned by way of secu­rity or be encum­bered with other rights.

5.2 The purchaser is bound to insure the reserved goods on his costs to our bene­fit suffi­ciently against fire and water damages as well as theft and burglary. Any insur­ance claims aris­ing in the event of damage have already been assigned to us. The assign­ment of claims is accepted.

6. Ship­ping charges

6.1 In addi­tion to the value of the goods, the ship­ping costs given at the comple­tion of the order are to be paid.

6.2 GTS expressly reserves the right, in case it is neces­sary and condi­tioned by the char­ac­ter of the order, to demand higher ship­ping charges in consul­ta­tion with the customer.

6.3 With non-EU coun­tries, indi­vid­ual freight costs are calcu­lated of which the customer will be informed follow­ing an order. After this he can either confirm the order or cancel it.

7. Order

The order of the customer is bind­ing; it is only consid­ered accepted with our writ­ten order confir­ma­tion, invoice or the ship­ment of the goods to the purchaser.

8. Right of Revo­ca­tion

8.1 In order­ing over the inter­net, the consumer (not the trade customer) has the right to revoke the purchase contract with­out giving reasons within 14 days from recep­tion of the goods or to return the goods. For the obser­va­tion of this dead­line, it suffices to send the revo­ca­tion off in good time. Then a reverse trans­ac­tion of the contract will ensue step by step.

8.2 If the goods were used and have signs of wear, the purchase can like­wise only be revoked within the legal dead­line of 14 days. We reserve the right to charge the consumer the decrease in value and value of the use of the goods.

8.3 If the revo­ca­tion concerns goods to a value of not more than 40 Euros, thus the purchaser has to bear the return costs unless the deliv­ered goods do not corre­spond to the ones ordered.

8.4 When damaged goods are returned, we are enti­tled to assert compen­sa­tion claims.

8.5 If the commer­cial purchaser refuses to accept the goods or if he with­draws from the order, thus we reserve the right to assert 25% of the agreed purchase price as lump sum compen­sa­tion. With custom-made arti­cles or goods espe­cially ordered for the customer, a lump sum compen­sa­tion of 60% is seen as agreed on.

9. Notice of defects — warranty — Liabil­ity

9.1 Inso­far as noth­ing devi­at­ing is agreed on, the legal warranty period of 24 months is valid for not obvi­ous defects. With obvi­ous defects, the customer has to report them two weeks after recep­tion of the goods in writ­ing present­ing the copy of the invoice, other­wise warranty claims for obvi­ous defects are excluded. The legal provi­sions of the commer­cial code apply to notices of defects by merchants.

9.2 The customer is bound to allow us to check the defec­tive goods. When a defec­tive object has been deliv­ered, the customer has the choice of a claim to subse­quent improve­ment of the defec­tive object or replace­ment deliv­ery. Only if a subse­quent improve­ment or first replace­ment deliv­ery fails, the customer can assert his right to with­draw from the contract (rescis­sion) or reduc­ing of the purchase price (reduc­tion). In the case of a subse­quent fulfil­ment, the customer is however bound to return the defec­tive object as well as pay compen­sa­tion for the bene­fit of use.

9.3 There is no guar­an­tee oblig­a­tion for damages due to normal wear as well as incor­rect handling. We carry the risk in return­ing goods rightly rejected. We also pay when the goods are sent anew.

9.4 We are exclu­sively liable for damages aris­ing from the viola­tion of essen­tial contrac­tual main respon­si­bil­i­ties (cardi­nal duties). A further liabil­ity only arises from the prod­uct liabil­ity law, or due to inten­tional or grossly negli­gent behav­iour by us or our vicar­i­ous agents.

10. Limi­ta­tion of liabil­ity

10.1 The GTS guar­an­tees that the contract prod­ucts are not afflicted with defects, which also include the absence of warranted char­ac­ter­is­tics. The produc­tion of the contract prod­ucts ensues with all neces­sary care. The contract parties are however aware of the fact that it is not possi­ble, accord­ing to the present state of the art, to exclude errors in the end-prod­uct under all appli­ca­tion condi­tions. Tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics and descrip­tions in produc­tion infor­ma­tion alone do not present any assur­ance of certain features, inso­far as they have no effects on qual­ity and usabil­ity of the objects. There­fore, custom­ary devi­a­tions remain reserved. An assur­ance of char­ac­ter­is­tics is only given in the legal sense if the respec­tive infor­ma­tion was confirmed in writ­ing by GTS. The liabil­ity of GTS is exclu­sively based on the agree­ments made in the previ­ous section. This is not valid in case of gross fault or intent.

10.2 The liabil­ity limi­ta­tion applies to contrac­tual as well as non-contrac­tual claims.

10.3 All deliv­er­ies to commer­cial resellers are subject to the reser­va­tions of correct and timely self-deliv­ery. A deliv­ery period begins as soon as all order condi­tions were agreed on. It extends, regard­less of our rights with customer delays, by the time which the customer is in delay. Partial deliv­er­ies are basi­cally permit­ted and bind the buyer to accept, unless some­thing else was expressly agreed on during the contract conclu­sion.

10.4 Delay in deliv­ery which occurs due to force majeure or due to events which make the deliv­ery essen­tially more diffi­cult or impos­si­ble – for exam­ple busi­ness disrup­tions, strikes, offi­cial orders, natural cata­stro­phes, etc.- frees GTS from observ­ing certain agreed on deliv­ery peri­ods.

10.5 The customer can with­draw from the contract if we are in delay and have let an exten­sion of time of 4 weeks expire unused.

11. Data protec­tion

In handling your personal data, we observe all provi­sions of the data protec­tion law, and are enti­tled to process and store all data concern­ing the busi­ness rela­tions with the customer observ­ing this law. Further­more, we are autho­rised accord­ing to applic­a­ble law to obtain details about cred­it­wor­thi­ness from mercan­tile and credit enquiry agen­cies.

12. Place of juris­dic­tion

The follow­ing place of juris­dic­tion agree­ment is only valid for the busi­ness trans­ac­tions with merchants. If the customer of GTS is a merchant in the sense of the law, the place of perfor­mance and the place of juris­dic­tion is Düssel­dorf. Regard­ing a consumer as customer, the general place of juris­dic­tion follows the code of civil proce­dure. The contrac­tual rela­tion­ship is subject to German law.

13. Sever­abil­ity clause

Should single provi­sions of these terms and condi­tions be or become totally or partially invalid, the valid­ity of the remain­ing provi­sions is not affected. The contract parties are bound in this case to inter­pret and formu­late the provi­sions in such a way that the success striven for with the void or legally invalid parts is attained as far as possi­ble.