General Terms and Conditions (GTC)

1. These General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter referred to as the “GTC”) of the Provider, in the version valid at the time the contract is concluded, apply to all business relationships between the Provider and the respective Customer with regard to all services of the Provider.

2. Terms and conditions of the Customer that conflict with or deviate from these GTC are as a matter of principle not recognised by the Provider. This applies otherwise only if the Provider expressly consents to them in writing by way of exception. These GTC also apply if the Provider renders services to the Customer in the knowledge of terms and conditions that conflict with or deviate from these GTC.

The Provider distributes products of Private Alpha Switzerland AG on its internet platform. These comprise exclusively digital products. Details of the offers are set out in the respective product description.

1. Customers within the meaning of these GTC may be consumers as well as entrepreneurs.

2. Pursuant to § 13 BGB, a consumer is any natural person who enters into a legal transaction for purposes that are predominantly attributable neither to their commercial nor to their self-employed professional activity.

3. An entrepreneur is a natural or legal person or a partnership with legal capacity who, when entering into the legal transaction, acts in the exercise of their commercial or self-employed professional activity.

4. Only Customers of full legal age and with unrestricted legal capacity may use the Provider’s services. For a legal person or a partnership with legal capacity, the services may only be ordered by a person with unrestricted legal capacity who is of full legal age and authorised to represent it

5. The Provider addresses its offer exclusively to Customers in the countries of the European Economic Area and in Switzerland. In particular, the offer is not addressed to Customers whose habitual residence or registered office is in Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom or the United States of America.

1. The presentation of products on the internet platform does not constitute a binding declaration of intent by the Provider.

2. The Customer submits a binding offer by sending the order in the final step of the ordering process, by activating the button “I have read the terms and conditions and agree to them” and pressing “Order now”. Immediately after the order has been sent, the Customer receives a notification confirming receipt of the offer, which does not yet constitute a declaration of acceptance by the Provider. A contract is concluded when the Provider confirms the Customer’s offer by a separate email. It is incumbent on the Customer to check their email inbox, including the SPAM folder, regularly. Until the binding declaration of acceptance has been sent, the Provider may refuse acceptance at any time without stating reasons. There is no entitlement to the conclusion of a contract.

3. In the course of the ordering process, the Customer selects the desired services under § 2 of these GTC and provides their personal data as well as the intended method of payment from the options in § 8 para. 3 of these GTC. Before activating the “Order now” button, the Customer is asked to check the data they have entered once more. In the event of input errors or incomplete details on the part of the Customer, the data are displayed again before transmission. The Customer has the right to cancel the ordering process at any time up to the activation of the “Order now” button without stating reasons.

4. An order is only possible if the Customer expressly accepts these GTC as well as the Provider’s data protection provisions pursuant to § 11 of these GTC.

5. In the event of delivery disruptions due to force majeure, including strikes and lockouts, the performance obligations of the Customer and of the Provider are suspended for the duration of the delivery disruption.

6. Subscriptions begin with the next available issue or at the next possible date, unless a later date was specified at the time of ordering. Detailed information on the subscription period and on the notice period is shown within the respective product description. Unless stated otherwise in the product description, the subscription is automatically extended by a period of one year if the Customer does not give notice to the Provider in text form or by email four (4) weeks before the end of the respective subscription period. Termination for good cause remains unaffected. It is expressly pointed out that the Customer can prevent the automatic extension of the contract by giving notice in good time.

7. If the place of performance is in Austria or Switzerland, the Provider undertakes to notify the Customer separately of the possibility of termination in good time before the end of the notice period. Because the notice period already begins to run upon conclusion of the contract and ends four (4) weeks before the end of the respective subscription period, the notification is given to the Customer six (6) weeks before the end of the subscription period. The Customer therefore retains at least two (2) weeks in which to submit any notice of termination.

8. The Customer must notify the Provider of changes that affect the performance of services under this contractual relationship, in particular the invoice, delivery and email address, at least ten (10) working days before the desired date of the change.

1. Orders and deliveries of print editions are not offered by Private Alpha Switzerland AG.

1. Ordered digital products are made available by the Provider. The Customer is notified of this by email. It is incumbent on the Customer to check their email inbox, including the SPAM folder, regularly. The digital products are made available independently of the notification of the Customer, so that the Customer can also retrieve the products in their customer account if they have not taken note of the notification of provision.

2. Through the provision, the Customer receives the right to use the products made available for their own information purposes and to copy them into the working memory of their computer. Downloading and temporary storage for private purposes are permitted in this respect. The Customer is entitled to produce a printout of the text only for their own information purposes. Beyond this, the Customer may use the retrieved text exclusively for their own use. The authorisation under this § 6 para. 2 is not transferable and applies only if protective notices and reproductions of trade marks and names remain unchanged in the copies.

3. The rights of use in digital products are granted revocably until payment has been made in full. Should a payment not have been received in full within two months of the due date, the Provider reserves the right to block the Customer’s authorisation to retrieve the digital products associated with the payment owed until payment has been made in full.

4. Unlimited availability of data cannot be guaranteed. The Customer is advised to store the ordered digital products locally on their end devices. The Provider will keep the ordered digital products and access to them available as uninterruptedly as possible. No warranty is given for availability at all times. In particular, interruptions of operation due to customary maintenance work, system updates or technical faults outside the Provider’s sphere of influence are possible.

5. It is incumbent on the Customer to ensure that they can establish unrestricted connections via the internet to external servers from their end device, that storage of the transmitted data is possible for them, and that the specific display software indicated in the respective product description is available to them for obtaining the individual services of the Provider.

6. The Customer is themselves responsible for keeping the access data for their customer account confidential. They will take the measures necessary to ensure confidentiality and will notify the Provider of any misuse or loss of the access data, or of any corresponding suspicion. If the Customer’s customer account is used vis-à-vis the Provider by a third party, the Customer is also liable for the activities of that third party connected with their customer account. In particular, the Customer is liable to the Provider for any damage, costs and expenses arising as a result. The Customer is not liable if they are not responsible for the misuse of their customer account.

1. All rights, in particular the copyright rights of use and exploitation in the texts contained in the Provider’s products, are vested exclusively in the Provider in relation to the Customer.

2. Any use of the Provider’s products going beyond the rights of use granted, in particular publication on the internet, as well as unauthorised reproduction, alteration, reprinting, distribution or making available, is not permitted. Permitted uses under copyright law are not restricted.

3. Insofar as the Customer is an entrepreneur within the meaning of § 3 para. 3 of these GTC, in particular where they carry out impermissible acts of exploitation under § 7 para. 2 of these GTC for consideration, they undertake to pay the Provider, for each case of culpable infringement of § 7 para. 2 of these GTC – to the exclusion of the plea of continuous infringement – an appropriate contractual penalty, to be determined by the Provider at its reasonable discretion and to be reviewed by the competent court in the event of a dispute.

4. The assertion of a claim for damages going beyond the contractual penalty under § 7 para. 3 of these GTC on account of an infringement of § 7 para. 2 of these GTC remains unaffected. The contractual penalty is, however, set off against any such claim for damages.

1. The price stated in the product description at the time the contract is concluded applies in each case. All prices stated are inclusive of value added tax at the current statutory rate. Any additional taxes and duties that may arise are always to be borne by the Customer.

2. The Customer is obliged to pay in advance for the respective agreed term from the conclusion of the contract.

3. The Customer may pay by invoice, credit card, PayPal or Stripe.

4. In the case of payment by invoice, the customer receives an invoice by email to the email address they have provided immediately after the due date. They must settle it within the payment period stated therein. If the customer defaults on payment, the Provider is entitled to demand default interest of five (5) percentage points above the respective base rate of the European Central Bank p.a. If the Provider can demonstrate that it has incurred greater damage caused by the default, it is entitled to assert this.

5. In the case of payment by credit card or direct debit, the credit card is charged, or the customer’s account is debited, on the due date.

6. In the case of payments by PayPal, the payment is processed via the payment service provider PayPal (Europe) S.à.r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg. The terms of use of PayPal apply. At https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full the customer can access the terms of use for payment via an existing PayPal account. The provisions for payments without an existing PayPal account of the customer can be accessed at https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/privacywax-full.

In the case of payments by Stripe, the payment is processed via the payment service provider Stripe Payments UK Ltd, 211 Old Street, The Warehouse, 7th Floor, London EC1V 9NR, United Kingdom. Use of this method of payment requires the Customer to register with Stripe. The terms of use of Stripe apply, which the Customer can access at https://stripe.com/en-ch/ssa.

7. In the case of services consisting of subscriptions, the Provider is entitled, after expiry of the minimum contract term of the subscription, to increase the price appropriately at its reasonable discretion where this is based on an increase in the general price level (in particular taking into account retail prices, insofar as the products concerned are also sold as individual issues) or in its costs. It must notify the Customer of the increase with reasonable notice and, in doing so, expressly grant them the opportunity to object and to terminate without notice. In the event of an objection, the Provider is entitled to terminate the subscription for good cause. From the time the increase takes effect, the new prices are payable. Prices already paid in advance are, however, guaranteed for the period of the advance payment and are not increased.

8. Termination or the exercise of a right of withdrawal does not entitle the Customer to have amounts paid by direct debit charged back by the bank. The Customer must compensate the damage arising from bank charges and processing effort in the case of a chargeback, in the amount of the fees actually incurred. The burden of proving that no damage, or lesser damage, has arisen lies with the Customer.

1. The Provider is liable for material defects in accordance with the statutory provisions.

2. The Provider is liable for intent and gross negligence, as well as for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, in accordance with the statutory provisions, for damages or for the reimbursement of futile expenditure.

3. The Provider is liable for slight or simple negligence in the event of a breach of a cardinal obligation. A cardinal obligation is an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance the customer regularly relies and may rely. Insofar as the breach of a cardinal obligation was only slightly negligent, however, and did not lead to injury to life, body or health, claims for damages are limited in amount to the typical and foreseeable damage.

4. The Provider is furthermore liable without limitation to the extent of any guarantee it has assumed.

5. No further liability attaches to the Provider.

6. The Provider is not liable for damage that may result from high-risk investment in stock exchange, exchange-traded futures and foreign exchange transactions. In particular, it is incumbent on the Customer, before placing a securities order, to check whether the security to be traded actually has the assumed characteristics in respect of price, underlying and terms.

Insofar as the Customer is a consumer within the meaning of § 3 para. 2 of these GTC, they have a right of withdrawal in accordance with the instructions set out in the annex.

The Provider’s current privacy policy can be found at the link https://privatealpha.ai/cookie-richtlinie-eu/. The Provider expressly points out at this juncture that, despite all technical precautions, the internet does not permit absolute data security. The Provider is not liable for the acts of third parties.

The Provider points out that investments in securities, money market instruments, derivatives or other financial instruments are in principle associated with risks. The total loss of the capital invested cannot be excluded. In the case of particular forms of trading (such as CFDs, futures, spot market), obligations to make additional contributions may arise in extreme cases, so that losses may also exceed the capital invested. No reliable statements about the future performance of the financial instruments presented can be derived from past performance. The information made available by the Provider in no way replaces professional advice tailored specifically to the personal and financial circumstances of the Customer.

1. The law of Switzerland applies, to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, where the Customer’s habitual residence is in Switzerland or in a state that is not a member of the European Union. If the Customer has their habitual residence in another member state of the European Union, mandatory provisions of the state in which the Customer has their habitual residence remain unaffected.

2. The Provider is entitled at any time to amend these GTC with effect for the future. The Provider informs the Customer of changes and adjustments to the GTC in good time in writing, by email or in another suitable manner and grants the Customer the opportunity t...