Terms of Service

1. Registration and Access

  • 1.1. To register, access and/or use Garfield: (1) you represent and warrant that you have read and you consent to our Privacy Notice; (2) you must be, and you represent and warrant that you are, at least eighteen years old; and (3) you must have, and on an going basis during your use of Garfield you represent and warrant that you have, capacity within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
  • 1.2. If you use Garfield on behalf of another person or entity, you must have their authority to accept these Terms on their behalf and you hereby represent and warrant to us on every occasion where you access and/or use Garfield that you have their authority.
  • 1.3. You must provide accurate and complete information to register for an account. You may not make your account, username or password available to anyone else and you are responsible for all activities that occur using your account, username and password.
  • 1.4. You may access, and we grant you a non-exclusive and non-transferable right to use, Garfield in accordance with these Terms. You shall comply with these Terms and all applicable laws and regulations when using Garfield.
  • 1.5. By using Garfield, you agree both for yourself and on behalf of your Organisation to comply with and be bound by these Terms, and agree that you have read and understood them and the documents they refer to. If you or your Organisation do not agree with these Terms, you must not access or use Garfield.

2. Your responsibilities and Garfield's scope

  • 2.1. You must: (1) only Input truthful and accurate information into Garfield; (2) only provide Input in the English language; (3) provide in a timely fashion and in electronic format any documents or other information required to progress your Claim; (4) carefully check any Output provided for factual errors (and correct any Output where necessary); (5) not permit any Output to be sent to any third party if it is not factually accurate; (6) not mislead any other party; (7) only initiate and/or pursue a Claim providing the debt(s) in issue are genuine bonafide debt(s) incurred properly in the course of business or trade; (9) not seek to enter any malicious Input; and (10) not seek to use Garfield other than for the purpose of commencing and/or progressing a Claim.
  • 2.2. You accept that machine learning and artificial intelligence are rapidly advancing areas and that due to the probabilistic and/or statistical nature of machine learning, use of Garfield may in some situations result in so-called "hallucinations" or Output that does not accurately reflect fact. As stated in clause 2.1, it is your responsibility to check facts before using any Output.
  • 2.3. You accept that Garfield is not a lawyer (or a human). In respect of a Claim, Garfield can assist you in populating chasing letters and letters before action, in answering any questions you have about pursuing a small debt claim and in preparing responses to any letter from the debtor. Garfield does not assist you in pursuing any Claim beyond a pre-action stage and cannot assist you in commencing or pursuing a small claim in Court. Garfield cannot and does not provide merits advice to you, i.e. Garfield cannot tell you if you are going to win or lose any Claim or predict the outcome (including but not limited to giving you percentage or other prospects of success). If you require merits advice, you agree to consult a solicitor or barrister admitted in England and Wales. You accept that Garfield should not be considered a substitute for the advice of a solicitor or barrister or other appropriately qualified professional. You agree that we have no obligation to provide any solicitor or barrister to act for you in any Claim and that the sole provision of services to you is by way of permitting you access to Garfield on these Terms.
  • 2.4. Garfield may include features which integrate with a third party's applications, software, or services or otherwise allows Garfield to interoperate with the same. Garfield disclaims any and all liability relating to the availability or use of such third party's applications, software or services and the functionality of such integrations.
  • 2.5. We do not permit you or any other party to bring onto Garfield any Claim that has not been commenced and progressed via any process other than by use of Garfield.
  • 2.6. Regrettably, we only support the English language and so: (a) all prompts entered into Garfield must be in the English language; and (b) any Claim pursued by Garfield in Wales will have to be in the English language.
  • 2.7. Unless otherwise expressly permitted by us in writing, you may not: (1) sell, sublicense, distribute, display, store, copy, modify, decompile or disassemble, reverse engineer, translate or transfer Garfield or the materials Garfield produces, in whole or in part, or as a component of any other product of service, (2) use Garfield or the materials on it to create any derivative works or competitive products; (3) allow any third parties to access, use or benefit from Garfield or materials on it in any way; and/or (4) use any programmatic, scripted or other mechanical means to access Garfield or the materials on it or otherwise deploy software applications to run automated tasks on Garfield; (5) use Garfield in a manner that, in our reasonable opinion, is abusive, illegal or threatens the integrity or performance of Garfield.
  • 2.8. You represent and warrant that you will use Garfield only in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Although we have no obligation to monitor your use of Garfield, we retain the right to do so and may prohibit any use of Garfield that we believe (in our sole discretion) may be (or alleged to be) in violation of these Terms.

3. Relationship

  • 3.1. Nothing in these Terms is intended to, or shall be deemed to, establish any partnership or joint venture between you and us, constitute us the agent of you, constitute you the agent of us, or authorise you to enter into any commitments for and on our behalf.
  • 3.2. We do not owe you any fiduciary duty.

4. Payments

  • 4.1. You will pay all fees charged to your account according to the prices and terms on the applicable pricing page of our website, or as otherwise agreed with us, inclusive of any applicable VAT. You will provide a valid and authorised payment method. We will charge that payment method on an agreed-upon periodic basis. You authorise us and/or our payment provider(s) to charge your payment method for these fees.
  • 4.2. If you pay us in another currency other than Pounds Sterling, we will convert the payment at our bank's standard exchange rates into Pounds Sterling. You will indemnify us for any charges we incur in receiving such funds. You remain liable for any shortfall after conversion and deductions.
  • 4.3. We do not accept payments from third parties including, but not limited to, other parties to any Claim. Any Defendant or other party that is to pay any sum to you should pay you directly.
  • 4.4. We do not accept or make cash payments.
  • 4.5. We do not operate a client bank account.

5. Confidentiality

  • 5.1. We shall keep the information you put on Garfield confidential (Confidential Information) save that:
    • 5.1.1. File sharing is done at your risk;
    • 5.1.2. Information that is already in the public domain or comes into the public domain through no fault of ours no longer needs to be kept confidential by us;
    • 5.1.3. We may share Confidential Information with our regulator, our service providers, our insurers, our auditors or as required by law (providing our service providers, our insurers and/or our auditors have undertaken a confidentiality obligation to us);
    • 5.1.4. We utilise third party service providers (including those that offer "cloud" services) to facilitate the provision of Garfield. We require all third-party service providers to adhere to: (1) industry standard frameworks for information security; (2) applicable data protection laws and (3) have undertaken a confidentiality obligation to us;
    • 5.1.5. We may use the documents and information uploaded onto Garfield to refine our models, algorithms and processes providing that the confidential information does not thereby become available to any other user.

6. Data and document retention

  • 6.1. We shall store all documents and information digitally. After six years, we may permanently delete those documents and information.

7. Intellectual property rights

  • 7.1. We own and reserve all intellectual property rights in Garfield (including, but not limited to, all copyright) and you agree that you will not do anything to infringe or prejudice our rights. We shall retain all right, title and interest in Garfield including (but not limited to) all improvements, enhancements and modifications thereto.

8. Indemnity

  • 8.1. You and your Organisation indemnify and hold us harmless for any loss or damage we suffer arising out of or connected to any breach by you of any provision of these Terms including, but not limited to, any claim against us by any other party.

9. Insurance

  • 9.1. We maintain professional indemnity insurance with Hiscox Insurance Company Ltd. The territorial scope of the insurance is: worldwide.

10. Disclaimer

  • 10.1. Garfield may be temporarily unavailable for scheduled maintenance or for unscheduled emergency maintenance, either by us or by third-party providers or because of other causes beyond our reasonable control (including but not limited to malicious activities of third parties). We do not warrant that Garfield will be uninterrupted or error free, nor do we make any warranty as to the results or outcomes that may be obtained from use of Garfield. Except as expressly set forth in these Terms and as required by applicable law and regulation, Garfield is provided "as is" and we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
  • 10.2. We do not give any warranty that Garfield and our means of delivering it are compatible with your software or computer configuration.
  • 10.3. We have no obligation to provide you with any support or maintenance in connection with Garfield.

11. Limitation of Liability

  • 11.1. We will only provide Garfield to you and we will not accept any liability to any person other than you and/or your Organisation.
  • 11.2. If a claim arises, connected to Garfield, you can only claim against us, not against any of our employees, consultants, shareholders, directors, agents or barristers. Each category of persons referenced in this clause can enforce it under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
  • 11.3. We will not be liable to you for any indirect or consequential loss or damage or for any loss of profits.
  • 11.4. Subject to clauses 11.1, 11.2 and 11.3, and save as stated in clause 11.5, our total liability to you and your Organisation for any loss, liability or damage in respect of any Claim, howsoever caused (whether in contract or tort, including but not limited to negligence, misrepresentation, restitution or breach of statutory duty) shall be limited to £10,000.
  • 11.5. Nothing in this clause 11 shall limit or exclude any liability that by law or regulation cannot be limited or excluded such as (without limitation) for fraud on our part, or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

12. Complaints

  • 12.1. Any complaints or concerns about Garfield should initially be raised by email to: complaints@garfield.law. If that does not resolve the problem, you should contact our Complaints Director, by post at our registered office address. If the problem remains unresolved, the complaints procedure will be implemented. A copy of the procedure is available on request.

13. Entire agreement

  • 13.1. These Terms are the only terms between us and supersede and cancel all previous written and oral agreements, promises, assurances, communications and other understandings relating to the subject matter of these Terms. You agree that in entering into these Terms you do not rely on and shall have no remedies in respect of any statement, representation, assurance or warranty (whether made innocently or negligently) that is not set out in these Terms.

14. Invalidity

  • 14.1. If any provision or part of a provision in these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid either as a matter of law or as a matter of regulation, then it shall be deemed changed insofar as it is necessary to make the provision enforceable and/or valid. If that is not possible, then the provision or offending part thereof shall be deemed deleted.

15. Force majeure

  • 15.1. We shall have no liability to you under these Terms if we are prevented from or delayed in performing our obligations under these Terms, or from carrying on our business, by acts, events, omissions or accidents beyond our reasonable control including, without limitation, strikes, lock-outs or other industrial disputes (whether involving our workforce or any other party), epidemic, pandemic, failure of a utility service or transport or telecommunications network, act of God, war, riot, civil commotion, malicious damage, compliance with any law or government order, rule, regulation or direction, accident, breakdown of plant or machinery, fire, flood, storm or default of suppliers or sub-contractors.

16. Transfer of our rights

  • 16.1. We may transfer our rights under these Terms.

17. Changes to these Terms

  • 17.1. We may make changes to these Terms from time to time and such changes shall be effective from the next time you use Garfield. Your sole remedy for any such change shall be you terminating your account.

18. Termination

  • 18.1. Both you and we have the right to terminate your use of Garfield by notice in writing at any time. You may terminate your use of Garfield at any time and without cause. Such termination will not prejudice our accrued rights and remedies. We may terminate on giving you reasonable notice and we shall only terminate for a good reason. "Good reason" shall non-exhaustively include any breach by you of any provision of these Terms.

19. Applicable and jurisdiction

  • 19.1. These Terms and all non-contractual rights and any dispute arising out of these Terms are governed by English law.
  • 19.2. You and we irrevocably agree to be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

20. Interpretation

  • 20.1. Claim means a Small Debt Claim.
  • 20.2. Garfield means the web and/or app based provision by us of a software implemented machine learning based system to you for assisting a claimant to pursue a Claim. Based on input by you, it includes the preparation of letters chasing debts and letters before action, the preparation of correspondence in reply to letters sent by a debtor responding to chasing letters and letters before action, and the provision by way of machine learning of answers to questions you may ask about small debt Claims. It does not include the provision to you of any:
    • 20.2.1. services relating to the commencement or pursuit of a small debt claim in the English Courts;
    • 20.2.2. advocacy service in Court;
    • 20.2.3. merits advice;
    • 20.2.4. enforcement of any English Court Order or judgment;
    • 20.2.5. the appeal from any English Court Order or judgment;
    • 20.2.6. other service (including but not limited to legal services, tax services or accounting services).
  • 20.3. Input means input you have provided to Garfield being, namely, information, data and/or documents you provide and/or upload to Garfield.
  • 20.4. Output means input you have provided to Garfield being, namely, information, data and/or documents you provide and/or upload to Garfield.
  • 20.5. Small Debt Claim means a debt claim for less than £10,000 (inclusive of interest thereon) pursued by you or your Organisation against a debtor, issued via Garfield by way of a pre-action letter before action.
  • 20.6. Terms means these Terms of Services, as may be amended from time to time pursuant to clause 18.1.
  • 20.7. We or Us means Project Garfield Limited, a company incorporated in England under company number 14848790.
  • 20.8. You means the user who is registering or has registered to use Garfield.
  • 20.9. Your Organisation means the organisation you work for.