GA Website (General Assembly Website) Terms & Conditions

For the purpose of these Terms and Conditions, specific terms and abbreviations are used which shall have the meaning as defined below: 

1.1. ‘Agreement’ stands for all of the following Terms and Conditions including all appendixes. All such documents form an integral part of this Agreement in relation to the General Assembly website. ​​​​​​ 

1.2. ´User´ means individual interested in participation in an Event organized by an entity within FSC Group. 

1.3. ´Material´ means the data of the User, including the name(s), job title, contact ID, organization`s name, organization`s website, department, working address, contact information, chamber, certification code, license code, language, state of activities. 

 1.4. ‘FSC AC’ is a company with its registered office in Calle Margarita Maza de Juárez # 436, Col. Centro, 68000 Oaxaca, Mexico. FSC AC is an international not-for-profit membership organization established to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, economically viable and overall sustainable management of the world’s forests. 

1.5. ‘FSC IC’ is a company with its registered office at Adenauerallee 134, 53113 Bonn, Germany. FSC IC is a not-for-profit company with limited liability to develop principles and standards for the FSC certification scheme. 

1.6. ‘FSC GD’ is the Forest Stewardship Global Development GmbH with limited liability wholly owned by FSC AC and constituted according to German Law: Bonn HRB 15990. 

1.7. ‘FSC Group’ stands in the context of this Agreement for FSC AC, FSC IC and FSC GD. 

1.8. ‘Third Party’ or ‘Third Parties’ refer to a party or to parties which is or are not explicitly named in this Agreement and are no Party thereof. 

1.9. ‘Login Data’ is defined in Section 3.2 of these Terms and Conditions. 

2.1. The General Assembly website is a computer-based interface accessible at ga.fsc.org, which primarily functions are enabling digitally registering to an Event organised by a member of FSC Group and communicating information related to the execution of the Event. 

2.2. Users are enabled to sign to the GA website and accept terms and conditions. 

2.3. Users are enabled to access public or private information related to the Event. 

3.1. The General Assembly (GA) website is publicly accessible. Access to the login function of the website is restricted to users who are FSC members, who may use it for the purpose of event registration and accessing sessions that are exclusively available to members.

3.2. For purposes of authorization, the Users shall be responsible for providing accurate, complete and up to date login information. Upon completing the registration form, Users will have the option to agree with the terms and conditions of the General Assembly website. In order to verify that a registration is actually made by the owner of an e-mail address, prior to registration the General Assembly website in-house team will send a personal email to confirm that e-mail address corresponding to the alleged company, to later provide the password to the password-protected section. At any time, the User has the option of requesting to changing or deleting the data, which will be publicly communicated as a withdraw in any FSC communication of progress. 

3.3. When using the General Assembly website FSC grants to User a single-user license, i.e. the access credentials can be only used by one person, royalty-free, non-transferable and non-exclusive license, subject to limitations set forth herein. 

3.4. User must immediately report to FSC any incidences of loss of control of its account or Login Data on the General Assembly website. 

3.5. FSC reserves the right to deny registration and/or access requests to User and is entitled, at any time and without obligation to give reasons, to deny the right to access the password-protected area by changing the password and/or blocking access to the section. 

3.6. These Terms and Conditions are agreed between the User with FSC when registering to the General Assembly website for the first time or once Terms and Conditions have been modified. 

4.1. According to § 7 (1) of the German Telemedia Act (“Telemediengesetz”, hereinafter ‘TMG’) FSC is only liable for any data input in the General Assembly website which FSC has created itself. According to §§ 7 (2), 8 to 10 TMG, FSC is not obligated to monitor Third Party information that is transmitted or stored in the General Assembly website, or to investigate circumstances that indicate illegal activity by Third Party users of the General Assembly website, while FSC’s legal obligations to remove or block the use of infringing information remain unaffected. FSC shall only be liable from the date it receives knowledge of a specific infringement. Therefore, upon notification to connect@fsc.org of relevant violations, FSC will investigate the infringement and where necessary will remove the User’s access. FSC may remove such content immediately.

4.2. Subject to the limitation in Section 4.1, the General Assembly website and any Material published on the website, is provided “as-is” and FSC shall not be liable for defects in quality, including but not limited to fitness for a specific purpose and usability. FSC shall only be liable in cases of personal injury, health damage or death, and under the German Act on Product Liability (“Produkthaftungsgesetz”). 

4.3. FSC provides the General Assembly website to the Users free of charge, however, to enable participation to an Event a payment on a specific fee might be required. 

4.4 FSC may stop the operation of theGeneral Assembly website in full or in part at any time. Due to the nature of the internet and computer systems, FSC is under no obligation to ensure the continuous availability of the General Assembly website for Users. 

4.5. In all cases, FSC reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to remove or edit any Material uploaded by Users for any or no reason. FSC may take these actions without prior notification to Users or any Third Party. 

4.6. Although FSC takes reasonable endeavors to keep the General Assembly website free from viruses, spammers, DoS or phishing attacks, FSC does not warrant that it is free of such threats. The User acknowledges that, for its own protection, it should take all appropriate security measures and utilize effective security measures before using the General Assembly website. The User shall indemnify and hold FSC harmless from and against any Third Party claims alleging that use of the Material in line with these Terms and Conditions infringes any right of any Third Party and shall compensate FSC and its directors, officers, employees or subcontracting parties for any financial losses, claims, property damage, personal injuries and expenses, including attorney fees, incurred by or in connection with any such Third Party claims. 

5.1. Upon acceptance of these Terms and Conditions by completing registration for using the General Assembly website, FSC allows the User to upload Material to the General Assembly website and use it to have access to its Materials. 

5.2. The User warrants, with respect to any Materials it has uploaded to the  General Assembly website, that: (i) it has all necessary rights to submit these materials to the  General Assembly website and grant the licenses set forth herein; (ii) FSC and User will not need to obtain licenses from any Third Party or pay royalties to any Third Party with respect to use of the Material; (iii) these Materials do not infringe any Third Party's rights, including intellectual property rights, data protection, and privacy rights; (iv) these Materials comply with these Terms and Conditions and all applicable laws. 

5.3. The User agrees that it will not upload any Material comprising, featuring or otherwise including any infringing, illegal, or inappropriate Material, including but not limited to materials which: (i) contain any pornographic, obscene, offensive, defamatory, or otherwise unlawful or immoral content; (ii) exploit minors; (iii) depict unlawful or violent acts;(iv) depict animal cruelty or violence towards animals; (v) promote fraudulent schemes or gives rise to a claim of deceptive advertising or unfair competition; or (vi) violates any law, statute, or regulation. 

5.4. With the limitations set in the Privacy statement or otherwise explicitly mentioned in these Terms and Conditions and accepted by the User, generally by uploading the Material the User grants to FSC an unlimited, worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, royalty-free, perpetual, transferrable and irrevocable license to any uploaded Material in any manner now or in the future known; exemptions required by law remain unaffected. These rights in particular explicitly include commercial use, the right to make the uploaded Material publicly available, to copy, to distribute, to modify, translate or otherwise amend the Material and to transfer or sublicense the rights to Third Parties, including any user downloading the Material. To the extent allowable under applicable local laws and copyright conventions, User also waive and/or agree not to assert against FSC any moral rights that User may have in the Material. 

6.1. Either Party can send a written notice of termination within two (2) weeks to terminate the participation on the General Assembly website. The FSC e-mail address for providing the notice is ga2025@fsc.org 

6.2. The license granted to FSC under Section 5.4 remains perpetual; exemptions required by law remain unaffected. 

7.1. If any provision of these Terms of Conditions is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be deemed superseded by a valid enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remaining provisions shall remain enforceable. 

7.2. These Terms and Conditions - and all disputes relating to or in connection with these Terms and Conditions or their subject matter - shall be enforced under, subject to and governed by the laws of Germany. 

7.3. The application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods (CISG) of 11 April 1980 is excluded. 

7.4. Where the User is a merchant within the meaning of the German Commercial Code (“Handelsgesetzbuch”), the exclusive place of jurisdiction shall be Bonn, Germany. 

7.5. Considering the international nature of the FSC Group and the purpose and scope of this General Assembly website, both Parties have chosen the English language for these Terms and Conditions. Notwithstanding the foresaid, in case of usage of technical or legal terms in German language the Parties agree that these shall have the meaning under and shall be interpreted exclusively in accordance with German law and language; the English translation of terms shall be for ease of reference only. 

7.6. FSC have the right to unilaterally change the content of these Terms and Conditions, insofar as these changes are only made for compelling reasons, including new technical developments, new case law or legislation, or other relevant events, provided such changes are reasonable. FSC will send an e-mail notification to the User regarding any changes to the Terms and Conditions. The change becomes an integral part of these Terms and Conditions unless the User terminates this Agreement with FSC in writing within six (6) weeks after receiving notice. 

7.7. This Agreement is subject to German law. All disputes arising in relation to this agreement or its validity which are not solved amicably shall be finally settled according to the Arbitration Rules and the Supplementary Rules for Expedited Proceedings of the DIS Institution of Arbitration e.V. (https://www.disarb.org/) without recourse to the ordinary courts of law. The place of arbitration shall be Bonn, Germany. The arbitration tribunal shall consist of one arbitrator. The substantive law of Germany shall be applicable to the dispute. The language of the arbitration proceedings shall be English, unless agreed otherwise in writing.