Terms & Conditions

By using this website including the Participate platform ("Participate”), which is owned and operated by LGC ASSURE, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions that appear below. For the purposes of these terms, “LGC ASSURE” including BRCGS, “we” and “us” shall mean LGC Limited and its group of companies.

You are free to access and print information on this website for personal use and internal use within your organisation. For terms and conditions of accessing and using the content on Participate, please refer to the Participate Terms and Conditions below. However, no part of this site may be distributed in any format without the prior express written agreement of LGC ASSURE.

All reasonable care and skill has been exercised in the compilation of information provided on this website including Participate. However, this website and the material on it including the content on Participate is provided “as is”. LGC ASSURE expressly disclaims and excludes all warranties, conditions, representations and terms, whether express or implied by statute, common law or otherwise, with respect to this website and the information, content, materials, goods and services included on it, including without limitation any implied warranties as to satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security, accuracy and completeness. We accept no liability for any loss or damage including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damages arising from use, or loss of use of, data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of this website.

4.1 LGC ASSURE’s website including Participate may contain links to third party websites. These links are provided for convenience only. LGC ASSURE does not control, endorse or otherwise accept responsibility or liability for the operation or content of other websites which are linked to LGC ASSURE’s website including Participate. We cannot therefore be held responsible for any contents (including but not limited to transactions, information, materials or links to other websites) that are available at these linked websites.

4.2 Users of LGC ASSURE’s website including Participate Users must obtain prior express written consent from LGC ASSURE before linking to the website and/or Participate to an external website which is not owned nor operated by LGC Limited and its group of companies.

4.3 LGC ASSURE reserves the right to revoke its consent granted under clause 4.2 at any time in its sole discretion.

LGC ASSURE owns all rights, titles and interests in this website and is the owner or licensee of any content contained on it, unless as otherwise stated. LGC ASSURE, the LGC ASSURE logo, LGC ASSURE Insights, BRCGS and the BRCGS logo are registered and/or proprietary trademarks of LGC ASSURE or its related companies in the UK and other countries. Copying of the LGC ASSURE logo, BRCGS logo, any other third party logos, and/or any images (photographic or otherwise) from this website is not permitted without prior approval from LGC ASSURE or the relevant owner.

These terms of use of this website including Participate Terms and Conditions ("Participate Terms”) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising under these terms of use shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Participate is operated by LGC ASSURE. By using Participate or downloading materials from Participate, users (the “User(s)”) agree to abide by these Participate Terms which shall be updated or amended by LGC ASSURE at any time without notice and are effective upon publication. Continued use of Participate constitutes acceptance of any modification to the Participate Terms.

The Users must ensure that any use of Participate by them or other authorised parties within their respective organisation, comply with these Participate Terms. If the relevant User (or any authorised party using Participate via the User’s account) breach these Participate Terms, LGC ASSURE may:

• give the User a notice to cease the unacceptable usage and make good of any resulting damage; or
• terminate or suspend the user’s account immediately, with or without notice as LGC ASSURE considers appropriate.

2.1 Unless explicitly stated otherwise in writing by LGC ASSURE, LGC ASSURE grants the relevant User a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-perpetual licence with limited right to view and download from Participate a single copy of the content contained in the registration for own and internal reference purposes only within the usual business site where the relevant User is usually attached to (“User’s Usual Business Site”), in accordance with these Participate Terms except.

2.2 Such copy may not be filed to form part of any hard copy reference collection.

2.3 The licence granted under clause 2.1 will automatically expire upon termination of the registration of Participate (however arises).

2.4 Where a User has a requirement to reproduce any document relating to BRCGS standards or other materials or portions of the BRCGS standards or other content as part of its documentation for external use the necessary pages of any document relating to BRCGS standards or other content, which may be reproduced and submitted provided a copyright notice is included and LGC ASSURE’s prior express written consent is granted.

2.5 Under no circumstances are Users permitted to reproduce all or part of any document relating to BRCGS Standards or other content for external use or for use in any other site or group of sites except as set forth in clause 2.1 above.

2.6 Users may not remove any proprietary markings or electronic watermarks (where applicable), including any copyrights and trademarks of the content.

2.7 The above requirements are general requirements only and apply in addition to any additional and specific LGC ASSURE or Participate’s terms and conditions which will be displayed to the User on each occasion where they attempt to access the relevant document relating to BRCGS standards or other content.

2.8 Users must not use Participate for:

(a) unlawful, fraudulent, criminal or otherwise illegal activities;

(b) sending, receiving, publishing, posting, distributing, disseminating, encouraging the receipt of, uploading, downloading or using any material which is offensive, abusive, defamatory, indecent, obscene, unlawful, harassing or menacing or a breach of the copyright, trademark, intellectual property, confidence, privacy or any other rights of any person;

(c) sending or uploading unsolicited emails, advertising or promotional materials, offering to sell any goods or services, or conducting or forwarding surveys, contests or chain letters;

(d) knowingly or negligently creating, transmitting, storing, publishing or uploading any electronic material (including, without limit, files that contain viruses, corrupted files, Trojans or any other similar software or program) which is known or likely to cause, interrupt, damage, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software, hardware or telecommunications equipment owned by us or any other Internet user or person;

(e) activities that invade any person's privacy, cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to any person;

(f) activities that are in breach of any other third party's rights, including downloading, installation or distribution of pirated software or other inappropriately licensed software, deletion of any author attributions, legal notices or proprietary designations or labels in any file that is uploaded, falsification of the origin or source of any software or other material;

(g) anything that may disrupt or interfere with Participate or cause a host or the network to crash;

(h) launching “denial of service” attacks; “mailbombing” attacks; or “flooding” attacks against a host or network;

(i) granting access to Participate to others not located at the premises at which the registration is connected, or, in any way reselling or re-providing the registration to third parties without LGC ASSURE’s prior express written consent;

(j) circumventing the user authentication or security process of a host or network.

2.9 Users agree that they will:

(a) use Participate for the permitted uses only and in accordance with these Participate Terms as may be updated from time to time by LGC ASSURE;

(b) not sell, transfer, sub-licence, distribute, commercially exploit or otherwise make available to, or use for the benefit of any third party the Participate platform;

(c) not (and will not allow any third party to) adapt, alter, modify, reverse engineer, de-compile or otherwise interfere with Participate or any content on Participate including any document relating to BRCGS standards without the prior express written consent of LGC ASSURE as otherwise permitted by law.

3.1A User’s duration of registration ("Term”) shall be for a period of eighteen (18) months commencing on the date of certification to a BRCGS Standard and on payment of the full service package fee (where applicable).

3.2 Thereafter the registration shall continue for consecutive eighteen (18) month periods (each a "Registration Year") for the duration the customer is certificated to a BRCGS Standard or until terminated by either party in accordance with these Participate Terms.

3.3 Users under the access type “certification body”, auditor, ATP, staff, consultant, or Professional shall be registered for a period of three (3) years unless the status of the relevant User changes in the interim.

3.4 Users shall promptly inform LGC ASSURE of any change in status, such as role, organisation or career movement. At this point the relevant User will be required to re-register on the Participate platform.

3.5 Any User granted special access to Participate by LGC ASSURE will be registered for a period solely determined by LGC ASSURE.

3.6 Users shall make all reasonable endeavours to prevent any unauthorised access to, or use of, materials and/or Participate and, in the event of any such unauthorised access or use, immediately notify LGC ASSURE.

3.7 Access is granted to the relevant User only and shall not be considered granted to any subsidiary or holding company of the User’s Usual Business Site.

4.1 All Standards (and all intellectual property rights therein) made available on Participate shall at all times remain the title and property of LGC ASSURE and no User shall acquire any rights, title or interest in the same. No User shall give, bargain, sell, assign, transfer, lend, part with the possession of or otherwise deal with or dispose of any content accessed through Participate or purport to do so.

4.2 No content made available on Participate can be sold, transferred, sub-licenced, distributed, commercially exploited or otherwise made available to, or used for the benefit of, any third party.

4.3 No content made available on Participate can be adapted, altered, modified, reverse engineered, de-compiled, uploaded to any platform or used for commercial gain without the prior express written consent of LGC ASSURE or as otherwise permitted by law.

4.4 No content made available on Participate is intended to be used as the sole basis for any business decision.

4.5 No part of Participate or content therein confers any transfer of title in any intellectual property rights.

5.1 Users are responsible for ensuring that security information remains confidential, so that Participate cannot be used by any unauthorised person.

5.2 The security information includes, but is not limited to, information controlling access to:

• any equipment, computer hardware systems or networks;
• any computer software or applications; or
• any other services accessed by theUsers in the use of either of the above.

5.3 Users shall not disclose any security information to any third-party, or use the same for any purpose connected with the improper use of Participate including accessing or attempting to access other parts of Participate for which the Users do not have access rights.

5.4 Users are responsible for taking all reasonable steps necessary to prevent a third-party obtaining access to Participate.

5.5 Users shall keep a secure password for their use of Participate. Each User shall keep their password confidential.

6.1 LGC ASSURE monitors usage the following purposes:

6.1.1 to review and improve content and service provision by Participate;

6.1.2 to support any resolution to any breeches within these Participate Terms; and

6.1.3 to support marketing, analytical or other legitimate business purposes of LGC Assure as set out in LGC ASSURE’s current Privacy Notice published on LGC ASSURE’s website.

6.2 By accepting these Participate Terms, the Users are agreeing to data on downloads and use of Participate being used by LGC ASSURE for the purposes of administration.

Any reports produced in connection with this clause 6 are protected under LGC ASSURE’s relevant policies relating to data Protection and will not be shared with any other organisation or other commercial parties without prior consent of any relevant User.

7.1 LGC ASSURE monitors the Discussion Board on Participate. Any abusive, defamatory, indecent, obscene, unlawful, harassing or menacing comments will be removed and the relevant User posting the information may have his/her registration terminated immediately under these Participate Terms.

8.1 All Users shall and shall procure that their personnel shall keep secret and confidential all business and trade secrets, know-how, specifications, processes, initiatives, methods of doing business, price lists and other confidential information and material disclosed by or obtained from LGC ASSURE through Participate ("Confidential Information"). All Users undertakes not to disclose LGC ASSURE’s Confidential Information to any third party other than its responsible personnel to whom disclosure is in good faith necessary for the proper performance of their duties in connection with the registration of Participate.

8.2 The obligations of confidentiality under clause 8.1 above shall not apply to any information or material which:

8.2.1 was known to the relevant User before his/her receipt from LGC ASSURE through Participate; or

8.2.2 is lawfully in the public domain other than by reason of breach; or

8.2.3 must be disclosed by law.

9.1 LGC ASSURE shall not be responsible for any failure to perform or delay in performance in whole or in part or for any loss, damage, injury or delay wholly or partly caused whether directly or indirectly due to unforeseen circumstances or circumstances beyond its reasonable control or which it could not have taken reasonable steps as shall be appropriate in the circumstances to avoid including but not limited to natural disasters, war, riot, embargoes, acts of civil or military authority, fire, flood, accidents, strikes and shortages of transportation facilities, fuel, labour, systems failures or materials.

10.1 LGC ASSURE shall have the right to terminate suspend any access to Participate summarily without compensation to the User in the event of any breach of any or all of the terms and conditions of these Terms and Conditions.

10.2 LGC ASSURE shall have the right to terminate access if it deems the User to be in competition with LGC ASSURE or any subsidiary.

10.3 Upon termination of access for any reason:

• the User shall immediately cease using Participate and delete any files or publications in their possession;
• these site terms and conditions which protect the proprietary rights of LGC ASSURE and the Publisher shall continue in force.

10.4 LGC ASSURE makes the final decision on terminating a user's access rights. No refunds are offered on any termination of access rights.