Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover

The ACE Platform ("ACE", "we", "us" or "the Platform") is operated by Ecopia Plc, a company registered in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia under commercial registration number AAT/AA/2/0000816/2004, with its registered office at House Number 229, Kirkos, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the ACE website, applications, APIs and services (together, the "Platform"). By creating an account, submitting a service request or using any part of the Platform, you agree to these Terms.

If you do not agree with these Terms, you must not use the Platform.

Scope of the Platform

ACE connects four areas of activity under one shared infrastructure:

• Goods, production and traceability. Product registration, producer identification, origin records, processing and value-addition records, production facilities, batches, quality documentation, logistics coordination and links to certification providers.
• Services and market access. Provider registration, service listings, requests for quotations, bookings, contracts, payment coordination and delivery records.
• Intellectual property and heritage. Rights-holder records, designs, trademarks, licences, traditional knowledge documentation, community consent, access-and-benefit-sharing (ABS) records and community authorisation.
• Institutional and regulatory coordination. Authority workflows, verification records, certification pathways, bilateral and multilateral programmes, and documented decisions by competent authorities.

These four areas are connected. A single user identity works across all of them. Where these Terms refer to "services", they refer to activities in any of these four areas.

2. What ACE is and what ACE is not

ACE is shared digital infrastructure for African trade in services. It connects registration, identity, documentation, verification, licensing, payment coordination, logistics coordination and market access into a single, verifiable record.

ACE is not:

• A bank, a payment institution or a money transmitter. ACE does not hold customer funds. All payment processing is carried out by licensed payment providers. Where ACE coordinates a conditional or milestone-based release, it does so only to the extent a licensed provider actually offers such a mechanism and ACE has contracted for it.
• A carrier, freight forwarder or customs broker. Logistics services are provided by licensed carriers and logistics partners. The contract of carriage is between the user and the carrier.
• A regulator, certifier, registrar or competent authority. Licensing, certification, product approval, customs clearance and any statutory decision remain with the relevant authority.
• A party to contracts between users. Where two users transact through the Platform, the contract is between them. ACE provides the record and the coordination tools; it does not become a party to the sale, the service agreement or the licence.
• A substitute for any national or continental legal framework. The rules of applicable law, including the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement and its protocols, apply independently of the Platform.

The competent authority retains its legal authority at all times. Where ACE carries a decision forward, ACE carries it forward as a record. The decision itself remains with the authority that made it.

3. Eligibility, accounts and organisation roles

You may use the Platform if:

• You are at least 18 years old, or you are acting on behalf of an organisation that is legally capable of entering into contracts.
• You are not barred from using the Platform under the laws of Ethiopia or of any other applicable jurisdiction.
• You provide accurate, current and complete information at registration and keep it up to date.

Organisation accounts

Where an account is created for an organisation — a company, a cooperative, a cooperative society, a university, a government body, a certifier or any other legal person — the individual who registers the account confirms that they have authority to act on behalf of that organisation.

Organisation accounts may have multiple users with different roles. The organisation is responsible for:

• Ensuring that each user is authorised to act on its behalf.
• Managing who has access to the account and what each user can do.
• Informing us promptly when a user's authority ends.

Verification status

Accounts and records may carry different verification states. These states describe what ACE has checked, not what the account holder is entitled to do. Section 9 explains the states in detail.

4. Your account and security

You must keep your login credentials confidential. You must not share your account with anyone else, and you must notify us immediately if you believe your account has been compromised.

You are responsible for all activity that takes place under your account, whether or not you authorised it, until you have notified us of a compromise and we have had a reasonable opportunity to act.

Where you use a shared or organisation account, the organisation is responsible for the actions of the users it has authorised.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Platform to break any applicable law, including export controls, sanctions, intellectual property law, data protection law and consumer protection law.
• Submit false, misleading or fraudulent information, including false claims about origin, materials, certifications, licences or identity.
• Impersonate another person or organisation.
• Upload, publish or otherwise disclose confidential information, community-controlled traditional knowledge, medicinal plant knowledge, sacred or ceremonial material, or any record that belongs to a community or third party, without the authorisation required by that community's protocols or by applicable law.
• Use the Platform to commercialise, license or distribute traditional knowledge, cultural expressions or genetic resources without the consent of the rights holders and without compliance with applicable access-and-benefit-sharing rules.
• Circumvent or misrepresent verification status. For example, describing a submitted record as verified, or a self-declared record as authority-approved, is a serious breach of these Terms.
• Interfere with the Platform's security, availability or integrity, including by attempting unauthorised access, introducing malicious code, or carrying out a denial-of-service attack.
• Use the Platform to harass, threaten or defraud any other user.
• Use the Platform to infringe the intellectual property rights of others.
• Scrape, harvest or systematically extract data from the Platform without our prior written consent.

We may suspend or terminate your access if we reasonably believe you have broken these rules.

6. Services offered on ACE

ACE operates in two distinct capacities. Users must understand the difference.

ACE's own services

ACE provides professional services directly to governments, institutions, producers and businesses. These services are commissioned from ACE and are the subject of a written proposal prepared by ACE. They include:

• Registration and verification. Registration of products, providers and facilities, and verification of records against the register.
• Intellectual property. Rights-holder registration, licensing support, traditional knowledge documentation, and benefit-sharing records.
• Certification and compliance support. Workflow support for regional origin, materials and process, and access-and-benefit-sharing compliance. Certificates are issued by the competent certifier or authority, not by ACE.
• Traceability and digitalisation. Origin, chain of custody, batch records and digital identity, from producer to buyer.
• Government and institutional services. Registration infrastructure, IP and traditional knowledge documentation, and bilateral or multilateral programmes.
• Custom digital trade solutions. Bespoke portals, registers, market observatories and integrations.

Each of these services begins with a written request from you. ACE reviews, scopes and proposes. Nothing is charged until you accept the written proposal.

Transactions between users

ACE also provides the Platform through which independent producers, buyers, service providers, carriers and rights holders transact with each other. These transactions are:

• Contractually between the users. ACE is not a party to the sale, the service agreement, the licence or the contract of carriage.
• At the users' own risk in matters of quality, fitness and delivery. Where the buyer and seller agree quality, quantity and delivery terms, the buyer and seller are responsible for those terms between them.
• Recorded by ACE. ACE maintains a verifiable record of the transaction, which either party may use in a dispute. The record is evidence, not adjudication.

Where a user requires ACE to act as a commissioning party for professional services, that is a separate arrangement under the "ACE's own services" section above.

7. Fees and payment

Fees for ACE's own services are set out in the proposal you accept and are invoiced by ACE. Fees are payable in the currency stated in the invoice.

Payment processing

Payments are processed by licensed payment providers. ACE does not itself hold customer funds at any point. Your payment is made directly to the licensed provider, which handles it in accordance with its own terms and its own regulatory obligations.

Supported payment methods and currencies

The currencies and payment methods currently supported on the Platform are set out at the time of checkout and may change. ACE will confirm which currencies a payment provider supports before presenting a payment option.

Milestone and conditional payment

Where a proposal is structured in milestones, each milestone is invoiced separately. Payment of the first milestone authorises ACE to begin work on that milestone.

Where a payment provider offers a conditional-release or escrow mechanism, and ACE has contracted for that mechanism, the payment terms will describe it in the proposal. ACE does not promise conditional release or escrow where its payment provider does not offer it. Users should read the proposal and the payment provider's terms to understand how funds move.

Refunds and disputes

Refunds are governed by the proposal you accepted and by the payment provider's own policies. Where a milestone has been delivered and accepted, the fee for that milestone is not refundable except where required by applicable law or the proposal states otherwise.

If a payment is reversed, cancelled, charged back or disputed by the payment provider, ACE may suspend the relevant service until the matter is resolved.

Taxes

Any applicable taxes, duties or government charges are your responsibility unless the proposal says otherwise. Where the Platform is required by law to collect tax, it will be shown on the invoice.

8. Intellectual property and knowledge rights

This section is fundamental to how ACE works. It distinguishes four categories of material, each with different rules.

A. Platform material

The ACE name, the ACE logo, the Platform's software, design, database structure, and all documentation and templates provided by ACE are the property of Ecopia Plc or its licensors. They are protected by applicable intellectual property law. You may not copy, modify, distribute or create derivative works of Platform material without our written permission.

B. Your content

You retain all rights to the content you upload to the Platform that is yours to upload — your product information, your business documentation, your photographs of your own products, your own trademarks and designs.

By uploading Your Content, you grant ACE a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, store, copy, transmit and display Your Content for the purpose of operating the Platform and providing the services you have requested. This licence ends when you remove Your Content or close your account, except where we are required by law or by an ongoing contract to keep a record.

C. Licensed material

Where you upload material that you have licensed from a third party — for example, a design, a photograph, a trademark used under licence, or a licensed botanical image — you confirm that your licence permits you to upload it and to grant ACE the limited licence in section B. You must not upload material under a licence that prohibits platform hosting or display.

D. Community-controlled knowledge and traditional knowledge

Traditional knowledge, medicinal plant knowledge, cultural expressions, ceremonial material, and any knowledge that belongs to a community is governed by different rules. It is not ordinary user content.

• No automatic licence. Uploading a traditional knowledge record to ACE does not grant ACE a licence to publish, commercialise, license or distribute it.
• Community authorisation. Where a record involves community-held knowledge, the record is published, shared or licensed only as authorised by the rights holders and in accordance with that community's protocols and applicable law.
• Access and benefit sharing. Where access-and-benefit-sharing rules apply — including under the Nagoya Protocol, national ABS laws, or the African Union framework — those rules are recorded on the Platform and are respected in any use of the record.
• Confidential records. Where a record is marked as confidential or access-restricted, it is visible only to the users and authorities authorised by the record owner. ACE does not disclose it to other users, to the public or to third parties except as required by law.
• Permission to use. Any use of community-controlled knowledge beyond the purpose for which it was uploaded requires the specific consent of the rights holders, recorded on the Platform.

If you are not sure whether material belongs in category D, do not upload it. Contact us at legal@ecopiagroup.com and we will help you determine the right way to record it.

Removal

If you believe material on the Platform infringes your rights, or was uploaded without the required consent, contact us at legal@ecopiagroup.com. We will review and, where appropriate, remove the material.

9. Verification, records and authorities

ACE records what users submit and what competent authorities decide. These are different things, and the Platform labels them differently.

Record states

Where a record carries an authority approval, ACE displays the authority's reference. Where it carries ACE verification only, ACE displays that clearly. A user must not describe a verified record as "approved" or "certified" unless a competent authority has in fact made that decision.

Authorities

The competent authority retains its legal authority at all times. ACE does not issue, renew, revoke or validate any authority decision. Where the Platform supports a verification workflow, the workflow is a coordination tool. The legal force of the decision remains with the authority.

Your records

You can access your own records at any time from your account. You can request corrections to any record that is inaccurate. The correction process is described in our Privacy Policy.

10. Third-party services and providers

The Platform uses third-party providers for some functions, and connects users to third-party providers for others. These are two different things.

Platform providers

These providers process data on ACE's behalf, under ACE's instructions, and are bound by ACE's terms:

• Hosting and database providers. For running the Platform and storing data.
• Email delivery providers. For sending transactional and service emails.
• File storage providers. For storing photos and documents you upload.

User-facing providers

These providers contract directly with you, under their own terms, and ACE is not a party to the contract:

• Payment processors. For handling the payments you make. You are redirected to the provider's own checkout.
• Carriers and logistics partners. For transporting goods. The contract of carriage is between you and the carrier.
• Certifiers and testing providers. For certification and testing. Their certification is issued under their own accreditation.
• Other users. Producers, service providers, buyers and rights holders transacting on the Platform.

ACE selects platform providers with reasonable care. ACE does not control user-facing providers and is not responsible for their independent acts or omissions.

11. Disclaimers

The Platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. While we work to keep the Platform running and accurate, we do not guarantee uninterrupted access or complete absence of errors.

We do not guarantee that a service request will be accepted, that a proposal will be issued, that an authority will approve a licence, certificate or clearance, that a user will perform a contract, that a payment will be completed, or that a trade will be completed. Those outcomes depend on many factors outside the Platform's control.

Verification on ACE reflects the evidence available to ACE at the time. It is not a warranty of quality, safety, legality or fitness for any particular purpose.

12. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Ecopia Plc is not liable for:

• Indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages arising out of or relating to your use of the Platform.
• Loss of profits, revenue, data, business opportunity or goodwill.
• Any act or omission of a third-party provider, counterparty, carrier, certifier or competent authority.
• Any decision made by a competent authority, including a refusal, a suspension or a revocation.
• Any breach of contract between two users.

Where liability cannot be excluded by law, our total liability to you is limited to the greater of:

• The fees you have paid to ACE in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or
• Any minimum amount required by applicable law.

13. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time. Certain records required by law, by an ongoing contract, or by the traceability function of the Platform may be retained after closure. Section 9 of our Privacy Policy sets out which records are retained and for how long.

We may suspend or terminate your account if:

• You break these Terms or any applicable law.
• You provide false or misleading information.
• Continuing to provide the service would put ACE, another user, or a third party at risk.
• You upload community-controlled knowledge without the required authorisation.
• We are required to do so by a competent authority or by law.

Where possible, we will give you notice before suspending or terminating, and an opportunity to respond.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where the change is significant, notify you by email or by a notice on the Platform before the change takes effect.

Continuing to use the Platform after the changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

15. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

Where a dispute arises, both parties agree to first attempt to resolve it through good-faith discussion. If discussion does not resolve the dispute within thirty (30) days, either party may refer the dispute to the courts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Consumers. Nothing in this section deprives you, where you are a consumer, of the protection of the mandatory consumer protection rules of the country in which you reside, or of your right to bring proceedings in the courts of that country where those rules or rights apply.

16. Contact