Welcome to the website of GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED. The developer and operations identity behind the services described on these pages is GBD Southwest. By viewing this website, by submitting an enquiry through it, or by commissioning, using or paying for any services that GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED provides, you agree to be bound by the terms set out in this document together with our privacy policy. Please read this page in full before you use the site or enter into any engagement with us. If you do not agree with any term below, you should stop using the website and should not commission our services. Nothing in these terms removes any right that the law gives you as a consumer which cannot be limited or removed by contract.
1. Who These Terms Are Between
These terms form a contract between you, the person or organisation reading and agreeing to them, and the entity that provides the services, GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED. GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED is a company registered in the United Kingdom, with its office and principal place of business at GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED, 3 Sparke Close, Plymouth - PL7 2YA, United Kingdom (GB). Throughout these terms the phrases the company, GBD Southwest, we, us and our all refer to GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
GBD Southwest is the name used by the company as a developer and operator for its products and for the systems it produces. When you see the GBD Southwest wordmark on a dashboard, an analytics screen or a launch report, it is GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED behind that identity. The development and product leadership of these systems is carried out by the individual developer Liu Qian, acting on behalf of and under the authority of the company.
The responsibilities of the company and of its developer within these terms do not dissolve any liability that rests on the company as the regulated contracting party. Where these terms give you rights against one identity, you do not lose those rights because a different name appears on a screen or a quotation.
2. Acceptance of These Terms
By using this website you confirm that you have read these terms and that you accept them. Where you act for an organisation, a company or another legal body, you confirm that you have the authority to bind that body to these terms. If you do not have that authority, do not use the website of the company or request its services on behalf of your employer.
Where a separate and formal contract exists between you or your organisation and the company for the provision of services, that written contract shall take precedence over these general website terms in the event of any conflict between the two. These website terms will then apply to the incidental matters that are not otherwise covered, such as use of the website itself and of any public demonstrations or content the company publishes.
We may need to change these terms from time to time to reflect changes in the law, in our services or in how the company is structured. Any revised version takes effect when it is published on this website and applies to use that occurs after publication. We will update the last updated date above whenever the text changes and we will draw material changes to the attention of our active clients and registered contacts.
3. Use of the Website
This website exists to describe the company, to explain its services and to let you start a conversation about coastal systems design, marine data integration and related work. You may browse it freely and you may download pages for your own private reference, but you use it at your own discretion and we cannot promise that it will always be free from interruption, delay or temporary fault.
We grant you a limited, revocable and non exclusive permission to access the website strictly for your own lawful purposes. You agree not to use the website in any way that is unlawful, that damages the reputation of the company, that interferes with the proper working of the site, that attempts to gain unauthorised access to any part of our systems, or that tries to reverse engineer, interfere with or introduce harmful code into the content we publish.
You may not scrape, harvest or store large volumes of the content of this website, and you may not use our text, designs, brand names or graphics for any purpose that suggests an affiliation with, or endorsement by, GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED where no such affiliation exists. The company keeps the price of admission to the site deliberately low: we ask only that you behave as a respectful professional guest while you are here.
4. Intellectual Property Rights
The content of this website, including its text, illustrations, layouts, colour schemes, motifs, data representations, underlying software code and the distinctive visual language built around its Plymouth coastal theme, is protected by copyright and related intellectual property rights. Those rights are owned by or licensed to GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED.
When we build software or data systems for a client, ownership of any work we deliver is addressed in the specific written contract for that engagement. In general, where we develop genuinely new code, designs or models for you at your cost, the terms of the project contract will state whether ownership transfers to you or whether we provide you with a licence to use the work. Because each contract differs, you should rely on that contract rather than on this general page for the treatment of bespoke deliverables.
Nothing in these website terms transfers to you any ownership of the intellectual property of the company. You may not copy, adapt, republish, distribute, display or otherwise exploit the protected content of this website for commercial purposes without our prior written consent. You may quote a short and reasonable excerpt from our pages for the purpose of genuine comment or review, provided that you attribute the source clearly to GBD Southwest.
If you believe that any content on this website infringes the copyright of another party, or that content belonging to you has been reproduced here without authority, please contact us at reach@gbdsouthwest.buzz and we will investigate the matter promptly and take down material that is shown to be infringing.
5. Quotations, Proposals and Estimates
When you request our services we will normally respond with a proposal or a quotation. A quotation is an invitation to treat rather than an automatic offer, and a binding agreement is formed only when we both sign a written statement of work or otherwise agree in writing to proceed on stated terms.
Every proposal we issue is based on the information available to us at the time it is written. We rely on your organisation to describe its needs accurately and to point out anything that would materially change the likely scope of the work. Where the information you give us proves to be incomplete or incorrect, the price and the timescale in our proposal may need to be revised to reflect the true position.
Prices stated in a quotation remain valid for the period shown on the quotation or, if no period is shown, for thirty calendar days from the date of issue. After that period we may revise the price before it is accepted. All prices are stated in the currency agreed in the proposal and are exclusive of any tax that applies at the point of invoicing unless the proposal states otherwise.
An estimate or a high level figure given in an exploratory conversation is not a fixed quotation. It is an indication to help you judge the scale of a project, and the firm price emerges only when the scope is written down and agreed.
6. Placing an Order and Forming a Contract
An order is formed when we issue a written proposal or statement of work and you accept it by signing it, by returning it, by paying a deposit, or by instructing us in writing to begin. We reserve the right to decline an order for any lawful reason, including where we consider that the work falls outside our skills, that we have a conflict of interest, or that we are unable to accept it within a sensible timescale.
The statement of work, once agreed, records the services to be provided, the deliverables, the schedule, the price, the payment terms and the assumptions on which the work is based. Any change to that statement of work must be agreed in writing by both parties. Work that we perform at your request beyond the agreed scope will be treated as an instructed variation and billed at the rates shown in the statement of work or, where none is shown, at our then current standard rates.
We will not begin chargeable work before a contract is in place. This protects both of us from uncertainty about what was promised and at what price. If you ask us to start emergency or exploratory work before formal documents are signed, we will confirm the arrangement in writing first so that neither side is surprised later.
7. Delivery, Milestones and Acceptance
Our work is delivered in a series of clearly described stages so that you can follow progress and catch problems early. Each statement of work lists the milestones, the acceptance criteria for each milestone and the date or week on which we aim to reach it. Milestone dates are targets based on our best judgement and on the information you provide, not guarantees of an exact calendar result.
When we deliver a progress stage or a final piece of work, you are invited to review it against the agreed criteria. You should tell us within a reasonable time, normally within ten working days of delivery, whether you accept the milestone or whether specific corrections are needed. Where you request corrections that fall within the agreed specification we will make them as part of the normal iterative process. Where your request changes the scope we will treat it as a variation in line with section six.
Completion of a bigger engagement is confirmed by a written acceptance from your side, or by your use of the delivered system for live purposes, or by the lapse of a reasonable review period without comment. Payments that are tied to completion fall due once the relevant milestone is accepted under this mechanism.
8. Your Responsibilities as a Client
The success of a systems project depends on good information flowing in both directions. You agree to give us access to the people, systems, documents and facilities that we reasonably need to do the work, and to answer our questions clearly and in good time. Where a project stalls because needed input is late, the schedule will move to reflect the delay.
You confirm that any data, content or third party material you share with us is lawfully yours or that you have the right to use it and to let us process it for the purposes of the engagement. You will obtain any consents required from the people whose personal data may be involved and you will keep those consents current.
You will not ask us to engage in any unlawful activity, to circumvent a security control, to access a system without authority, or to build a capability intended for wrongdoing. Where our engagement depends on your own accounts, keys, servers or third party subscriptions, you will ensure those remain valid and that the relevant access does not lapse mid project without notice to us.
Unless you have commissioned managed services from us, you accept operational responsibility for the live systems that connect to any work we deliver, including their backup, security monitoring and routine housekeeping, once the relevant handover is complete. We will make clear in writing the exact point at which each part of a delivered system becomes your responsibility.
9. Fees, Invoicing and Payment
Fees are agreed in the statement of work and are invoiced either against agreed milestones, on a monthly basis for ongoing work, or in instalments as the contract records. Unless a contract states otherwise, we invoice for the portion of work completed at the close of each agreed period and payment is due within thirty days of the date of our invoice.
Where a deposit or an advance is agreed, work does not begin until that payment clears and the project start date moves accordingly if the deposit is late. Where payment is genuinely disputed we ask you to tell us in writing before the due date so that we can resolve the difference rather than treat an honest query as a default.
If an invoice remains unpaid after its due date, we may suspend further work until the account is settled, and interest may accrue on overdue amounts in line with the statutory rate permitted by law. Suspension for non payment does not release you from your obligation to pay for work already completed, and we will not hold a client to ransom unfairly where a lawful late payment exists beyond any one party control.
10. Our Commitments and Warranties to You
We warrant that the services we provide will be carried out with reasonable care and skill by competent people, that those people will act in a professional and honest manner, and that the work we deliver will conform in all material respects to the specification set out in the agreed statement of work.
We warrant that we have the right to provide the services and to use our tools and methods in doing so, and that the deliverables, used in the way we describe and for the purpose we agree, will not infringe the valid intellectual property rights of an unconnected third party to the best of our knowledge.
We make no warranty that any system, once operating, will be free from every fault or interruption, because no computer system anywhere can reach that standard. Instead we commit to practice that prevents faults where it can, to monitoring that detects them quickly where it cannot, and to honest, swift repair when something does break. Express repair commitments appear in any separate service level agreement we sign with you.
Where the law implies warranties or conditions that cannot lawfully be excluded, we do not seek to exclude them. Our warranties exist alongside those statutory rights and do not diminish them.
11. Exclusion and Limitation of Liability
Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any liability that the law does not allow a business to limit. Those heads of liability remain unlimited.
Subject to that, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party shall be liable to the other for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, including loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of data, loss of goodwill, interruption to business or wasted management time, however such loss arises, whether in contract, in negligence or otherwise.
Our total liability to you arising out of or in connection with any engagement, whether in contract, in tort (including negligence), for breach of statutory duty or otherwise, shall not exceed the total amount of fees actually paid by you to us under the relevant contract in the twelve months preceding the event that gave rise to the claim. This cap is agreed by the parties as a fair allocation of risk given the size of the fees involved and the nature of the work.
Where we supply a service free of charge, such as a preliminary consultation or a general estimate on this website, our total liability for that service is limited to the amount actually paid for that service, namely zero, except in respect of matters that cannot lawfully be limited.
12. Data, Confidentiality and Security
Each party will treat the confidential information of the other with care, using it only for the agreed purpose and disclosing it only to people who need it and who are bound to secrecy. Confidential information includes project briefs, source code, design models, pricing structures, unpublished findings and anything else marked confidential or that a reasonable person would recognise as confidential.
These confidentiality duties last during the engagement and continue for a period of five years afterwards, and indefinitely for genuine trade secrets and for information comprising a lasting regulatory or commercial secret. They do not apply to information that is already public, that we receive lawfully from another source, that we develop independently, or that we are required to disclose by law.
The company handles personal information in line with its privacy policy, which you should read alongside these terms. Where an engagement involves personal data we will agree any necessary data processing terms and will apply appropriate technical and organisational security measures to that data. You remain responsible for lawfulness of the use of the data in your own hands within the engagement.
We may keep records of your details and of our correspondence with you for the legitimate purposes of administering our relationship and meeting our legal obligations, subject to the retention, deletion and subject access rules described in our privacy policy.
13. Suspension, Termination and Handover
An ongoing engagement may be terminated by either party by written notice where the other party commits a material breach that is not remedied within a reasonable period of written notice. An engagement that falls away without such a step is ended by the mutual written agreement of both parties.
If a project is suspended or ended, you must pay for work properly completed up to the date of the stop, together with any agreed kill fee or early termination charge recorded in the statement of work. On payment of sums due we will hand over the deliverables completed to that date in a form that is reasonably usable by you, subject to any licence terms in the contract.
Either party may pause its obligations immediately where an event occurs that is beyond its reasonable control and that prevents performance, such as a serious network failure, a natural event, an industrial dispute affecting a strategic provider or a change in law. In that circumstance the party affected will tell the other promptly and both will agree sensible next steps rather than letting the pause become a default.
14. Relationship Between the Parties
Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, a joint venture, an employment relationship or an agency between you and GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED. Each party is an independent business and remains responsible for its own people, tax and obligations. Neither party has authority to make commitments on behalf of the other unless a separate authority is given in writing.
The people we deploy to an engagement remain employees or engaged contractors of the company, and you will not seek to employ or engage them privately for the same or a similar purpose for a period of twelve months after they have worked on your project, without our written consent, unless you pay a reasonable introduction fee agreed at the time. This clause protects the investment the company makes in its people and is not intended to prevent normal professional contact.
We remain free to serve other clients, including competitors of one another within different niches, provided that we honour our confidentiality duties. Our standard of conduct is to treat every client fairly and not to favour one over another in a way that ordinary professional practice would consider improper.
15. Events Beyond Either Party Control
Neither party will be in breach of these terms for failing to perform an obligation, other than an obligation to pay money, where the failure is caused by an event outside that party reasonable control. Those events include severe weather affecting the South West, a general failure of the internet or of public power, an act of a public authority, an industrial dispute outside the party control, or any comparable occurrence.
The affected party will notify the other as soon as it can, stating the nature of the event and its likely duration, and will use reasonable efforts to continue performing what it can and to limit the impact of the delay. Where the event continues for more than thirty consecutive days either party may treat the suspension as a decision point and may discuss ending the unaffected parts of the engagement fairly.
When an event beyond control ends, both parties will resume their obligations as if the delay had not occurred and will agree any fair adjustment to dates, costs and fees that the delay has made necessary, to the extent required by the changed reality on the ground.
16. Governing Law and Disputes
These terms and any engagement between you and GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED are governed by, and interpreted in accordance with, the laws of England and Wales, without regard to any conflicts of law principle that would point to a different system.
Where you are a business, you agree that the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction to hear any dispute arising under or in connection with these terms. Where you are a consumer who lives in a country of the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, you retain the benefit of the mandatory protections of the law of the country where you live and you may bring a claim there or in England as the applicable law allows. A consumer who lives in England, Wales or Scotland may still bring a claim in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom in which they live.
If any part of these terms is found by a competent court or authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable, that part will be severed and the remainder will continue in full force. A failure by either party to insist on a term at one moment does not amount to a permanent waiver of that term.
17. Support, Contact and Escalation
We value a working relationship where concerns are raised early and resolved fairly. If you have a complaint about any part of our service, please tell us first so that we have the chance to put it right. Begin by email to reach@gbdsouthwest.buzz or by telephone on +17345754279 during office hours, or in writing to GBD SOUTHWEST LIMITED, 3 Sparke Close, Plymouth - PL7 2YA, United Kingdom (GB).
We will acknowledge any formal complaint within two working days and will give you a full written response within a reasonable further period, normally fifteen working days, explaining the outcome and any action we have taken. If your concern relates to our handling of personal information, we will treat it under the complaints procedure described in our privacy policy and in line with data protection law.
Nothing in these terms prevents you from taking a dispute to a court or to any ombudsman or regulator that has lawful jurisdiction over the matter. We simply ask that you contact us first in the spirit of the straight dealing that characterises our coastal practice, so that many disagreements can be settled without formal proceedings at all.