1. An order is placed either by signing an order form or by the client accepting a proposal in writing, sent to [email protected] and copied to [email protected]. A proposal is an invitation to treat; placing an order accepts these conditions, and the contract is made when the publisher returns the agreement countersigned from [email protected]. That reply is released by a named person, never by automation and never on a request made in conversation. It is a binding contract and financial commitment, deemed made at the offices of the publisher, Magnus Publications Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 08420396, registered office Westside Court, Booker Common, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, HP12 4QS, VAT number GB 170 4552 23, publisher of CFI.co. These terms, and every document they incorporate, apply in the versions cited in the order, or where none is cited, the versions published at the date of the order; a later revision does not change an order already placed. An engagement runs for the period the order states, or where it states none, for twelve months from confirmation. Further work during an engagement is added by a further order placed in the same way; it does not vary the original order.

2. This agreement shall be governed by the laws of England and all parties shall submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.

3. Invoices are issued in two parts, half when the order is confirmed and half ninety days after that, unless the order states otherwise. Each is for immediate payment, payable to Magnus Publications Limited. Work begins when the first invoice is issued and does not wait for it to be paid; nothing is published until every invoice then due has been paid. The publisher supplies treaty documentation on request; where withholding relief remains unavailable after that documentation, sums payable are grossed up so that the publisher receives the invoiced amount. Where clause 5 or clause 9 applies, invoices not yet issued, issued and unpaid, or already paid are adjusted so that the client pays only what those clauses leave due.

4. Neither party charges interest, and neither intends to claim it. Instead, where an invoice is more than seven days unpaid the publisher may suspend the work, withhold publication, and recover the costs it actually incurs in obtaining payment. This does not purport to exclude any right that cannot lawfully be excluded.

5. No paid work under an order is published without the client's approval, given in the form set out in clause 15. If the client decides not to proceed with the engagement at any time before publication, the publisher returns everything paid beyond 20% of the price of the order, whatever has been spent and whatever stage it has reached. If the client withholds an approval a particular piece of work cannot run without, the same applies to a fair proportion of the price, assessed reasonably by the publisher. Editorial coverage is different: the subject checks it for factual accuracy, and the text and the decision to publish remain the publisher's.

6. The publisher reserves the right to reject or amend changes to any text supplied by the client, and any change the client proposes to text written by the publisher. All reasonable efforts will be made by both parties to ensure suitable materials are published.

7. The publisher is not responsible for errors in material the client supplied or approved. It is responsible for an error it introduces after approval, and approval of an earlier draft is no answer to a change made without the client's agreement. Either way the publisher corrects the record on request, and the record is corrected forward, never removed.

8. Content paid for by the client is labelled correctly: clearly to the reader and in machine-readable form, in line with current best practice, which the publisher keeps up to date. The label cannot be removed at any price, by anyone, including the publisher.

9. Paid content is produced to CFI.co's editorial and evidence standards, set out in the publisher's editorial governance under clause 18. The client confirms factual accuracy; editorial control, tone and standards stay with the publisher. An approval permits publication; it never requires it, and a claim that does not meet those standards does not run whether or not the client has approved it. The publisher publishes or declines approved work within three working days. No period given to the publisher by these terms runs while it is waiting for anything reasonably required from the client or its representatives, including approval, payment, information or a vault record. Where the publisher does not publish paid work, whether by declining it or by missing that period for reasons within its control, and the client has not withheld approval, it returns everything paid for that work, whatever has been spent and whatever stage it has reached.

10. What CFI.co publishes stays published and is not deleted. An error is corrected openly and dated, normally within one working day and at no charge, for as long as the page is up. A page is marked as recording its subject as at its date and not maintained for later events; that marking does not limit correction of error. Where the law requires removal, the removal is recorded rather than made silently.

11. Copyright in work produced by the publisher stays with the publisher, and the licence below covers only material the publisher is entitled to license. On payment in full the client may use, reproduce, translate, excerpt, adapt and sublicense that work anywhere, for as long as it likes, at no further charge: in its own communications and through its group companies and the agencies, advisers and service providers acting for it, on websites and social media, in presentations, in investor, stakeholder and internal communications, and in advertising and promotional material. Three conditions: first publication is attributed to CFI.co, with a link to the original where reasonably practical; no alteration materially misrepresents the original meaning; funded content is never presented as the publisher's independent editorial.

12. The publisher does not guarantee search ranking, citation or use by any AI system, inclusion in any AI system's training data, or any commercial outcome. Where these are measured they are reported as observations, never as targets.

13. The publisher tests how AI systems and search engines describe the client and its content, before and after publication, using public systems and published material only. The questions are the kind a prospective client, investor, journalist or researcher would actually ask, never prompts designed to produce a particular answer, and each is recorded and shown with its result. The client receives every result, favourable or not, and at least three further reviews at the publisher's initiative in the twelve months from first publication under the engagement.

The publisher's own records and its anonymised aggregate reporting are unaffected, and that reporting is published whether or not it favours either party, because evidence chosen for being favourable is not evidence. Any use of a named client's results, or of the work itself, as an example of the publisher's services is a separate permission, given in the order. The publisher never claims results for the client's business and never discloses the price or any other term of this agreement.

14. Material the client sends the publisher for use in any content, funded or editorial, is copied by the client to [email protected] when it is sent; each message is kept as received, hashed and externally timestamped. That record establishes four things and no more: that the material existed no later than the external timestamp, which is independently verifiable; that it reached the publisher when the publisher's receipt records, which is the publisher's own record and not an independent one; that it is unaltered since; and, where the message carried a valid signature from the sending domain, that it came from that domain. It establishes nothing about whether the material is true.

The publisher does not publish client-supplied material for which there is no vault record from the client. That is a fixed limit, not a matter of judgement, deadline or seniority: the publisher does not publish what it cannot attribute. The requirement can be met at any time before publication, and the publisher will ask rather than wait. Material too large to send by email is sent as a link, which the publisher retrieves and seals. Material may be sent by an agency or adviser; where it does not come from the client's own domain, or carries no valid signature, the record is marked and the material is published only where the client confirms it from the address of record.

The hash, the external timestamp and the record of receipt are permanent. The material itself is kept for at least twelve months from publication, or from receipt where nothing is published, and is not destroyed merely because that period has passed — a client may prefer it kept, for provenance or for later analysis of how these systems treat its content. After that period the client may ask for it to be destroyed; destruction leaves the hash, the timestamp and the record of receipt untouched, so what was proved about the material stays proved. Where the law requires removal, the removal is recorded. A submission is corrected by sending a corrected one, sealed in the same way; both are kept and the later governs. The client undertakes not to send personal information about another person which it is not entitled to have kept. Where the client does not provide a vault record, clause 5 applies; a record supplied late is cured at no cost.

15. Approval to publish is given by the client to [email protected] and sealed on arrival in the same way. An approval identifies the draft it applies to: the client's sealed message is the approval, and the publisher's record of the draft then live corroborates it but does not replace it. Replying to the message carrying the draft satisfies this. An approval applies to that draft alone; any later change that alters meaning requires a fresh approval, and other changes are notified to the client when made. It is given by the client, or by an individual the client has authorised in writing; an agency or adviser may send material under clause 14 without being able to approve publication. Nothing is approved by silence or by time passing. Where approval was given but not sealed, clause 14's cure applies, at no cost to the client.

16. Each party keeps the other's non-public information confidential and uses it only for the engagement: unpublished drafts, material supplied before publication, embargoed announcements and anything marked confidential. It does not cover the published work, the publisher's anonymised aggregate reporting, information already public or independently known, or disclosure required by law. The client does not send price-sensitive information that is not yet public unless the order provides for it and sets out how it is handled. The obligation survives the engagement.

17. An answer given in the name of the company is attributed to the company. An answer given by a named individual, in that individual's own voice, is attributed to that individual, by name and role, wherever it is used. The choice belongs to the client, because a name carries a different weight from a company's. The client may say at any time before publication that an answer is to be treated as the company's; there is no cost to saying so and it is never treated as a refusal to answer. After publication the attribution is a dated record, changed only as a correction under clause 10. Attribution to an individual lasts as long as the page: if that person later leaves the client, the page remains a record of what they said while they were there, and their departure is not a ground for removal or re-attribution. On the client's notice the page is marked with the date the person ceased to hold the role. The client makes sure anyone answering on its behalf knows this before they answer, and the publisher says it again when acknowledging each submission.

18. These terms incorporate the publisher's editorial governance, published, versioned and hashed at cfi.co/governance. Where that governance gives the client more than these terms, the more favourable applies.

19. These terms and conditions, with the order incorporating them, constitute the entire agreement between client and publisher in relation to that order, and supersede all prior agreements, arrangements, understandings and representations in any form relating to it. Each order stands on its own: a further order neither varies nor supersedes an earlier one unless it says so, identifying what it changes. They are varied only by a term recorded in the order or stated in the publisher's countersigned confirmation, identifying the clause it changes or the obligation it adds; nothing else varies them, and no course of dealing or conduct does. A term that reduces the labelling, editorial standards or permanence commitments in these terms, or that would put the publisher in breach of the governance incorporated by clause 18, has no effect. Where the parties sign a separate agreement dealing with confidentiality or the handling of particular material, it takes precedence to that extent.