Conditions & Privacy

General Terms of Use

1. Introduction

This page explains the terms of use of Crowd Payment Services Ltd (“CROWDFUND”). When you use CROWDFUND, you are automatically agreeing to all the rules detailed on the present page. By using this website (the “Site”) and services (together with the Site, the “Services”) offered by CROWDFUND, (together with its parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, representatives, consultants, employees, officers, the board of directors, the directors, and any sub-committees and members thereof — collectively, the “Company,” “we,” or “us”), you are agreeing to these legally binding rules (the “Terms”). You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy and agreeing to follow any other rules on the Site.

These Terms may be changed from time to time. In such case, we shall inform you about any material changes, either by notifying you on the Site or by sending you an email. New versions of the Terms will never apply retroactively — we will tell you the exact date which they go into effect. If you keep using the Site after a change has been announced, that automatically means that you accept the new Terms.

2. About Creating an Account

To sign up for an account, you need to be 18 years old or over. You are responsible for your account and all the activity on the latter.

Only residents of the Republic of Mauritius and companies or organisations based in the Republic of Mauritius with appropriate legal standing (including, but not limited to NGOs) are entitled to use the Site. For the purposes of the foregoing, the Company reserves the right to request the necessary legal documentation attesting residency for individuals and lawful capacity/standing for organisations.

You can browse the Site without registering for an account. But to use some of the Site’s functions, you will need to register, choose an account name, and set a password. When you do that, the information you will be giving us has to be accurate and complete. Do not impersonate anyone else or choose names that may be offensive or that may violate anyone’s rights. If you do not follow these rules, we may cancel your account with immediate effect

You are responsible for all activities on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you find out that someone has used your account without your permission, you should report it immediately to us.

3. Things You Definitely Should Not Do

This section provides a non-exhaustive list of things you should not be doing — such as lying, breaking laws, abusing people, stealing data, hacking other people’s computers etc.

We expect you to behave responsibly and not to do any of the following things on the Site:

• Do not break the law. Do not take any action that infringes or violates other people’s rights, violates the law, or breaches any contract or legal duty you have toward anyone.

• Do not lie to people. Do not post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Do not do anything deceptive or fraudulent.

• Do not offer prohibited items. Do not offer any rewards that are illegal, violate any of CROWDFUND’s policies, rules, or guidelines, or violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance, or regulation.
• Do not victimize anyone. Do not do anything threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libellous, tortious, obscene, profane, or invasive of another person’s privacy.

• Do not spam. Do not distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Do not run mail lists, or any kind of auto-responder or spam on or through the Site.

• Do not harm anyone’s computer. Do not distribute software viruses, or anything else (code, films, programs) designed to interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or equipment on the Site (whether it belongs to the Company or another party).

• Do not try to interfere with the proper workings of the Services.

• Do not bypass any measures that we have put in place to secure the Services.

• Do not try to damage or get unauthorized access to any system, data, password, or other information, whether it belongs to the Company or another party, which shall be in contravention of all applicable laws, including but not limited to, the Data Protection Act 2004.

• Do not take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or on our third-party providers. (We reserve the right to determine what is understood as reasonable.)

• Do not take apart or reverse engineer any aspect of the Site in an effort to access things like source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms.

4. Process of Selecting Projects and Follow-up Procedures

In order to post and/or maintain projects on the Site, and conduct (on a case by case basis) follow-up procedures, the Company’s board of directors has lawfully mandated a project selection and follow-up committee (the ‘Committee’) to carry out the aforementioned duties.

If the Committee deems that the proposed project is not suitable for funding on the Site (irrespective of the reason), the project promoter will be apprised of the same as soon as is reasonably practicable.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Committee and the Company reserve the right, at their sole discretion, to refuse and/or halt the funding of a proposed project on the Site at any point in time.

5. How Funding Works for Donors

You will be entitled to provide funding towards various projects, the details of which shall be posted on the Site. The funding of the various projects can be made by way of online payment only which shall be effected in Mauritian Rupees, USD and EURO only. Funding towards a particular project will be capped at a specific amount to be proposed by the project promoter and validated by the Committee for the purposes of funding the project on the Site (the ‘Required Amount’).

If the Required Amount has been attained, it shall be allocated towards the project for the purposes of its realisation. For the avoidance of doubt, CROWDFUND shall not be held liable nor responsible in the event that the project promoter does not use the Required Amount or any sum of money collected via the Site for the implementation of their project, irrespective of whether the project be a Major Project or not.

Upon being posted on the Site, each project shall be allocated a first attempt to attain the Required Amount up to a maximum period of ninety (90) calendar days (the ‘First Attempt’). If the Required Amount has been attained on the First Attempt, the Company shall, subject to it having effected all applicable percentage deductions stated above, disburse the Required Amount to the project promoter for purposes of realising the said project.

Should the Required Amount not be attained on the First Attempt, the project promoter will have following option(s) available which shall comprise of one of the following:

1. a second and final attempt up to a maximum of sixty (60) additional calendar days to attain the Required Amount via the Site;
2. request payment of the money raised (in part or in full) collected via the Site for the purposes of their project, irrespective of the Required Amount not having been attained.

Any and all payments made by CROWDFUND in pursuance of the foregoing terms shall be in Mauritian Rupees and effected as soon as is reasonably practicable.

In light of the foregoing, you hereby agree and acknowledge that:

(i) in spite of your donation towards a project, the Required Amount may not be attained by the selected project;

(ii) your donation shall not be reimbursed by CROWDFUND irrespective of the Required Amount having been attained or not;

(iii) CROWDFUND shall not be held liable nor responsible in the event that the project promoter does not use the Required Amount or any sum of money (which includes your donation) collected via the Site for the implementation of its project, irrespective of whether the project be a Major Project or not.

iv) Should your donation be made by mode of payment a) internet banking b) Juice payment by MCB. The donor will be responsible for including the donation reference provided by CROWDFUND at the moment of placing the donation on the CROWDFUND platform. Additionally, CROWDFUND will send a 'payment pending' email to the donor that will include i) amount to be paid ii) Project selected  iii) CROWDFUND bank a/c details iv) Payment reference to be added in the remarks section when finalizing the payment via internet banking or juice. As such, CROWDFUND shall not be held liable nor responsible should the donor fail to include the payment reference at the moment of doing the a) internet banking b) Juice payment to CROWDFUND. Should CROWDFUND receive a payment from a donor by a) internet banking b) Juice and there is no payment reference and the name of the bank account sender finds no match in our system, then CROWDFUND will donate the entire amount to a selection of projects on the plarform.

For the avoidance of doubt and in addition to clauses 14 to 16 below, you are hereby informed that CROWDFUND shall not be held liable or accept any liability for claims pertaining to the funding and/or the failure/refusal of project promoters to fund their projects as stipulated in this clause, irrespective of the Required Amount having been attained or not.

6. How Funding Works for Project Promoters

Once a project is posted on the Site, CROWDFUND does not guarantee that the sum of money required to realise the project shall be attained.

The Site is merely a medium of communication for your project, bearing in mind that it is entirely your responsibility to ensure that you adequately promote it to your entourage and the public at large.

Nine point nine percent (9.9%) of the totality of the donations towards your project shall be retained by CROWDFUND to cater for its operational costs and maintenance of its Site.

With regards to how funding and disbursement works, please refer to the applicable provisions of clause 5 above.

In light of the foregoing, you hereby agree and acknowledge that:

(i) Nine point nine percent (9.9%) of the totality of donations towards your project shall be retained by CROWDFUND to cater for its operational costs and maintenance of its Site;

(ii) CROWDFUND does not guarantee nor confirm that the Required Amount to realise your project shall be attained upon being posted on the Site;

(iii) at no point in time will CROWDFUND be responsible for the promotion, realisation and reporting of your project irrespective of whether the Required Amount has been attained or not.

For the avoidance of doubt and in addition to clauses 14 to 16 below, you are hereby informed that CROWDFUND shall not be held liable or accept any liability for claims pertaining to the funding of projects as stipulated in this clause.

7.  Force Majeure/National Interest Projects

A Force Majeure project shall constitute one which CROWDFUND deems is aimed at the fundraising of an event which may have occurred in the Republic of Mauritius or internationally, and which shall include, but not be limited to, events such as:

• act of God (such as, but not limited to, fires, explosions, earthquakes, drought, tidal waves and floods); or

(b) war, hostilities (whether war be declared or not), invasion, or act of foreign enemies. A National Interest project shall constitute one which CROWDFUND deems is aimed at the fundraising of an event which may have occurred in the Republic of Mauritius or internationally and is clearly a matter which has or could have an impact upon all members of Mauritian society, and which has also been addressed by the Government of the Republic of Mauritius in law or policy.

8. Things We Do Not Do and Are Not Responsible For

We do not oversee or follow-up on projects’ performance at any point in time, and we do not mediate disputes between users.

CROWDFUND is not liable for any damages or losses related to your use of the Services. We do not become involved in disputes between users, or between users and any third party relating to the use of the Services. We do not oversee the performance or punctuality of projects, and we do not endorse any content that users submit to the Site. When you use the Services, you automatically release CROWDFUND from claims, damages, and demands of every kind — known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed — arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and the Services. All content you access through the Services is at your own risk. You are solely responsible for any resulting damage or loss to any party.

9. Other Websites

If you follow a link to another website, what happens there is between you and them — not us.

The Site may contain links to other websites. (For instance, project pages, user profiles, and comments may link to other sites.) When you access third-party websites, you do so at your own risk. We do not control or endorse those sites.

10. Your Intellectual Property

We do not own the material you post on the Site. But when you post it, you are giving us permission to use or copy it however we need in order to run the Site, or show people what is happening on it. (We generally just use this to promote projects and showcase our community on the Site.) You are responsible for the content that you post, and you are vouching to us that it is all suitable to use.

CROWDFUND does not own content that you submit to us (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. Hence, when you submit a project for review, or launch a project, you hereby agree to the following Terms:

• We can use the content you have submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable, transferable right to use, exercise, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content.

• When we use the content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, delete, or translate any of your Content.

• You shall not submit the material you do not hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant the Company all the license rights outlined here).

• Any royalties or licensing on your Content are your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity based on your Content.

• You hereby confirm that if we use your Content, we are not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If CROWDFUND or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in this agreement, you hereby confirm that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.

• You are responsible for the materials that you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom that content originated.

• We are not responsible for mistakes in your content. CROWDFUND will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any content.

11. CROWDFUND’s Intellectual Property

The content on the Site is protected in various ways. You do have the right to use it for personal purposes, but you cannot use it for anything commercial purposes without getting permission from the CROWDFUND first.

The Services are legally protected in various ways, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, and other rights and laws. You agree to respect all copyright and other legal notices, information, and restrictions contained in any content accessed through the Site. You also agree not to change, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of the Service.

If you want to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, or store any content pertaining to the Site and/or Services for any commercial purpose or otherwise, you need prior written permission from CROWDFUND or the relevant copyright holder. A “commercial purpose” means you intend to use, sell, license, rent, or otherwise exploit content for commercial use, in any way.

12. Deleting Your Account

You may delete your account at any time. Deleting your account will not make content you have already posted go away.

You can terminate your account at any time. All provisions of this agreement survive termination of an account, including our rights regarding any content you’ve already submitted to the Site. (For instance, if you have launched a project, deleting your account will not remove the project from the Site.)

13. Our Rights

To operate, we need to be able to maintain control over what happens on the Site. So in this section, we reserve the right to make decisions to protect the health and integrity of our system. We do not take these powers lightly, and we only use them when we absolutely have to.

CROWDFUND thus reserves its rights to:

• Make changes to the Site and Services without notice or liability.
• Decide who is eligible to use the Site. We can cancel accounts or decline to offer our Services. (Especially if you are abusing them.) We can change our eligibility criteria at any time. If these things are prohibited by law where you live, then we revoke your right to use the Site in that jurisdiction.
• Cancel any pledge to any project, at any time and for any reason.
• Reject, cancel, interrupt, remove, or suspend any project at any time and for any reason.

CROWDFUND is not liable for any damages as a result of any of these actions, and it is our policy not to comment on the reasons for any such action.

14. Warranty Disclaimer

We work hard to provide you with great services, but we cannot guarantee everything will always work perfectly. This site is presented as-is, without warranties.

You use our Services solely at your own risk. They are provided to you “as is” and “as available” and without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

CROWDFUND specifically disclaims any and all warranties and conditions of merchantability, non-infringement, and fitness for a particular purpose, and any warranties implied by any course of dealing, course of performance, or usage of trade. No advice or information (oral or written) obtained by you from CROWDFUND shall create any warranty.

15. Indemnification

If you do something on the Site that results in getting us sued, you have the obligation to help defend ourselves.

If you do something that gets us sued, or break any of the undertakings you make in this agreement, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and other legal costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of the Site. We reserve our right to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter otherwise subject to this indemnification clause, in which case you agree that you shall cooperate and help us in asserting any defences.

16. Limitation of Liability

If something bad happens as a result of your using the Site, we are not liable.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will CROWDFUND, its directors, employees, partners, suppliers, or content providers be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, consequential, special, or exemplary damages of any kind, including but not limited to damages (i) resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Services; (ii) for any lost profits, data loss, or cost of procurement or substitute goods or services; or (iii) for any conduct of content of any third party on the Site.

17. Data Protection

CROWDFUND hereby undertakes that it shall abide by all applicable provisions of the Data Protection Act 2004 when handling your personal information for the purposes of the Site and all other related activities.

Where applicable, all project promoters are required to abide by all the applicable provisions of the Data Protection Act 2004.

18. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law

We are located in the Republic of Mauritius, and any disputes with us have to be handled in the Republic of Mauritius pursuant to applicable Mauritian law.

CROWDFUND encourages you to contact us if you are having an issue, before resorting to the courts. In the unfortunate situation where legal action does arise, these Terms (and all other rules, policies, or guidelines incorporated by reference) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Mauritius and without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree that CROWDFUND and its Services are deemed a passive Site that does not give rise to jurisdiction over CROWDFUND or its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, assigns, employees, agents, officers, the board of directors, the directors, any sub-committees and members thereof, either specific or general, in any jurisdiction other than Mauritius. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these Terms, or your use or non-use of the Site, shall be filed only in the Republic of Mauritius, and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts for the purposes of litigating any such action.

19. Miscellaneous

These Terms and the other material referenced in them are the entire agreement between you and CROWDFUND with respect to the Services. They supersede all other communications and proposals (whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and CROWDFUND with respect to the Services and govern our future relationship. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under the law, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms otherwise will remain

in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure of either you or CROWDFUND to exercise any right provided for in these Terms in any way will not be deemed a waiver of any other rights.

These Terms are personal to you. You cannot assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get CROWDFUND’s prior written consent. CROWDFUND has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms without your consent. CROWDFUND will provide you notice via email, written notice, or by conspicuously posting the notice on our Site.

Last Updated : 24 January 2020