General Terms and Conditions for Newspapers and Magazines

1. The term “advertisement order” as used in the following General Terms and Conditions refers to the contract concerning the publication of one or more advertisements of any advertiser or any other space buyer in a printed publication for the purpose of circulation.

2. Unless stated otherwise, advertisements should be released for publication within one year of the signing of the contract. If the right to release individual advertisements is included as part of the contract, the order should be processed within one year from the appearance of the first advertisement where the first advertisements are released and published within the timeframe stated in clause 1.

3. Upon contractual signing, the customer shall be entitled to release further advertisements in addition to the volume stated in the order within the agreed timeframe or that stated in clause 2.

4. In case an order may not be executed due to circumstances for which the publisher cannot be held responsible, the customer, without prejudice to any other legal obligations, shall pay the publisher the difference between the discount granted and the discount which corresponds to the actual volume. This reimbursement shall not take place, if the non-fulfillment is due to force majeure in the publisher’s area of risk.

5. In the calculation of advertisement volumes, text millimeter lines are converted according to price into advertisement millimeters.

6. Orders for advertisements and third-party inserts to be published specifically and exclusively in specific issues, specific publications or in specific places in the publication must reach the publisher in sufficient time so that the customer may be informed before the advertisement deadline of whether the order can be executed in the manner specified. Without being subject to any explicit agreement, classified advertisements shall be printed in the appropriate category.

7. Textual advertisements are advertisements which border on the text – and not on other ads – on at least three sides. Advertisements which for example are not recognizable as such because of their editorial layout shall be clearly identified as such by the publisher for instance by marking it with the word “advertisement”.

8. The publisher shall reserve the right to reject advertisement orders, including any individual advertisements under the terms of a contract and insert orders on grounds of content, origin or technical format under its own standard, factually justified principles, if their content infringes legal or regulatory stipulations or if their publication is unacceptable for the publisher. This shall also apply to orders submitted to branch offices, receiving offices or representatives. Orders for insert shall become binding for the publisher only after a sample of the insert has been submitted and approved. Inserts which, due to the format or appearance, may appear to the reader to be part of the newspaper or magazine, or which contain third-party advertisements, shall not be accepted. The customer shall be notified immediately about the rejection of an order.

9. The customer shall be responsible for timely delivery of the advertisement text and accurate printing data and inserts. The publisher shall request replacement for any recognizable inaccuracies or damaged printing data without delay. The publisher guarantees print quality normal to that of the title concerned within the scope of the possibilities of the printing data.

10. In the event of totally or partially illegible, incorrect or incomplete printing of the advertisement, the customer shall be entitled to a reduction in payment a corrected replacement advertisement, but only to the extent that the purpose of the advertisement is affected. If the publisher allows an appropriate period of time given for this purpose to elapse or if the replacement advertisement is still incorrect, the customer shall be entitled to a reduction in payment or cancellation of the order.  Compensation claims from positive breaches, faults upon contractual signing or non-permitted acts are excluded. This also applies to contracts concluded by phone..  Compensation claims from impossibility of provision or delay are limited to compensation for foreseeable damage and to the fee due for the advertisement or insert concerned. This does not apply to intent and gross negligence on the part of the publisher, its legal representative or its vicarious agents. Liability of the publisher for damages arising from the absence of assured qualities and properties shall remain unaffected.

Furthermore, in accordance with the principles of sound commercial practice, the publisher shall not be liable for gross negligence on the part of its vicarious agents; in all other cases, liability to business people for gross negligence shall be limited, according to the extent thereof, to the foreseeable damage and up to the amount of the payment for the advertisement in question. Complaints must be made within four weeks of submission of invoice and receipt, except in the case of defects that are not obvious.

11. Press-proofs shall only be provided if specifically requested. The customer shall be responsible for the correctness of the press-proofs returned. The publisher shall observe all error corrections made known to it within the period of time specified upon sending the press-proof.

12. In case no particular specifications have been made concerning the size, the amount charged shall be calculated based on the print size that is normal for the type of advertisement.

13. In case the customer does not make any advance payment, the invoice shall be sent immediately or within a maximum of fourteen days after publication of the advertisement.

The invoice must be paid within the period given in the price list, starting from the date of receipt of the invoice, unless a different payment period has been agreed upon in individual cases. Any discounts for advance payments shall be granted according to the price list.

14. In the event of delay or deferral in payment, interest and recovery costs shall be charged. In the event of delayed payment, the publisher may withhold further publication under the order concerned until payment is made and demand advance payments for the remaining advertisements. Where there is established doubt over the customer’s ability to pay, the publisher shall be entitled, even during the term of an advertisement contract, to make the publication of further advertisements dependent on advance payments of the amount due  and the settlement of outstanding invoices, regardless of the payment terms originally agreed.

15. If requested, the publisher shall provide an advertisement record together with the invoice. According to the type and scope of advertising contract, advert extracts, record pages or full record numbers will be provided. If a record can no longer be created, it will be replaced with a legally binding certification from the publisher of the publication and distribution of the advertisement.

16. The customer shall bear the costs of the production of ordered printed documents and of considerable changes arising or requested by the customer to the specifications originally agreed.

17. In the event of reduction in circulation, a price reduction may be claimed for contracts for a series of adverts if, in the overall average of the insertion year of the first advert, the average circulation stated in the price list or stated any other way or, if a circulation figure is not given, the average number of issues sold (for trade magazines, where appropriate, the average actual distribution) in the previous calendar year is not exceeded.

A reduction in circulation is only deemed as a deficiency eligible for a price reduction if it amounts to

– 20 per cent for circulation of up to 50,000 copies

– 15 per cent for circulation of up to 100,000 copies

– 10 per cent for circulation of up to 500,000 copies

– 5 per cent for circulation of up to 500,000 copies.

Added to this, claims to price reductions for contracts are excluded, if the publisher has given notice of the reduction in circulation to the customer in sufficient time for the customer to be able to cancel the contract before the publication of the advertisement.

18. With box number advertisements, the publisher shall exercise the due care of a responsible businessman for the keeping and timely forwarding of the offers received. Registered and express letters as response to box number advertisements shall be forwarded with regular mail only. Reply letters to box number advertisements will be stored for four weeks. Mail not collected within this period will be destroyed. The publisher shall return valuable documents without being obliged to do so. The publisher reserves the right, in the interest and for the protection of the customer, to open incoming offers in order to eliminate misuse of the box number service for investigation purposes. The publisher is not obliged to pass on business promotions and agency offers.

19. Print document shall only be returned to the customer if specifically requested. The obligation to keep these ends three months after expiry of contract.

20. Place of fulfillment is the registered office of the publisher. Place of jurisdiction is the registered office of the publisher. If claims by the publisher may not be settled by way of enforcement proceedings, the court of jurisdiction for non-traders shall be determined on the basis of their domicile. If the place of domicile or usual place of residence of the customer at the time of the raising of proceedings is unknown or the customer has relocated its domicile or usual residence since the contractual signing to somewhere outside the geographical scope of the law, the registered office of the publisher shall be agreed as the place of jurisdiction.

Additional Terms and Conditions of the Publisher

a) Provided that no other agreement has been expressly made, new rates arising due to price adjustments also immediately apply to current orders. In the case of non-traders this does not apply to orders which are to be carried out within four months following conclusion of contract.

b) For more than 30,000 mm advertisement space, an individual calculation is possible.

c) The publisher reserves the right to agree on special rates or special formats for advertisements in special issues or similar dependent on specific situations.

d) Advertising agencies and agents are obliged to adhere to the publisher’s rates in their offers, contracts and settlements with customers.  The commission guaranteed by the publisher may not be transferred either wholly or partly to the customer.

e) In case of insufficient printing quality, the customer is not entitled to a claim if the defects in the original copy or artwork provided by the customers were not immediately recognizable. The same applies to errors in repeat advertisements if the customer fails to inform the publisher prior to the printing date of the next advertisement about the error.

f) In the case of disruption of operations or in case of force majeure (industrial dispute, confiscation, traffic disturbances, general raw material or energy shortage and the like) – in both the publisher’s establishment and/or external businesses used by the publisher for fulfillment of its obligations – the publisher is entitled to demand full payment for the published advertisements provided that 80 % of the guaranteed circulation (or in case of lack of a guaranteed circulation the normally sold circulation) of the publisher’s publication has been distributed. In the case of lower distribution by the publisher, the invoice amount is to be reduced in direct proportion to the extent to which the guaranteed (or normally) sold circulation has been reduced.

g) Provided that no other agreement has been explicitly made, the customer bears sole responsibility for the content and legal permissibility of the text and graphics material submitted. The customer exempts the publishers from all claims possibly made by third parties in this context.