Website Terms of Use
These terms of use (‘terms’) tell you the rules for using our website www.thespiritco.com (“our site”).
Who we are and how to contact us
www.thespiritco.com is a site operated by Universal Wines & Spirits Limited trading as ‘The Spirit Co.’ (‘We’). We are registered in England and Wales under company number 05327331 and have our registered office at Unit 2 Greencroft Estate, Tower Road Annfield Plain, Stanley, Durham DH9 7XP.
We are a limited company and an online spirit shop founded in Durham, northeast England.
To contact us, please email support@thespiritco.com or write to us at the postal address above.
By using our site you accept these terms
By using our site, you confirm that you accept these terms and that you agree to comply with them. If you do not agree to these terms, you must not use our site.
Minimum Age Restrictions
We can only sell alcoholic beverages to customers who are at least 18 years of age. By placing an order with us you confirm that you meet the Minimum Legal Age for purchasing alcohol in your country of residence.
There are other terms that may apply to you
These terms refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our site:
- Our Privacy Policy.
- Our Cookie Policy, which sets out information about the cookies on our site.
If you purchase goods from our site, our Terms and Conditions of Supply will apply to the sales.
We may make changes to these terms
We amend these terms from time to time. Every time you wish to use our site, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time.
We may make changes to our site
We may update and change our site from time to time to reflect changes to our products, our users’ needs and our business priorities.
We may suspend or withdraw our site
Our site is made available free of charge.
We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our site for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.
You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.
You must keep your account details safe
If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.
We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms.
If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us at the contact details set out above.
Prohibited uses
You may use our site only for lawful purposes. You may not use our site:
- In any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation.
- In any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect.
- For the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way.
- To send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our content standards set out below.
- To transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam).
- To knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware.
You also agree:
- Not to reproduce, duplicate, copy or re-sell any part of our site in contravention of the provisions of these terms.
- Not to access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt:
- any part of our site;
- any equipment or network on which our site is stored;
- any software used in the provision of our site; or
- any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party.
Content standards
These content standards apply to any and all material which you contribute to our site (“Contribution”), and to any interactive services associated with it.
The Content Standards must be complied with in spirit as well as to the letter. The standards apply to each part of any Contribution as well as to its whole.
We will determine, in our discretion, whether a Contribution breaches the Content Standards.
A Contribution must:
- Be accurate (where it states facts).
- Be genuinely held (where it states opinions).
- Comply with the law applicable in England and Wales and in any country from which it is posted.
A Contribution must not:
- Be defamatory of any person.
- Be obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory.
- Promote sexually explicit material.
- Promote violence.
- Promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.
- Infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person.
- Be likely to deceive any person.
- Breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
- Promote any illegal activity.
- Be in contempt of court.
- Be threatening, abuse or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
- Be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person.
- Impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person.
- Give the impression that the Contribution emanates from Universal Wines & Spirits Limited, if this is not the case.
- Advocate, promote, incite any party to commit, or assist any unlawful or criminal act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.
- Contain a statement which you know or believe, or have reasonable grounds for believing, that members of the public to whom the statement is, or is to be, published are likely to understand as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
- Contain any advertising or promote any services or web links to other sites.
How you may use material on our site
We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site.
You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.
You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.
Uploading content to our site
Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our site, or to make contact with other users of our site, you must comply with the content standards set out above.
You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you will be liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. This means you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of warranty.
Any content you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content, but you are required to grant us a limited licence to use, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties.
We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.
We have the right to remove any posting you make on our site if, in our opinion, your post does not comply with the content standards set out above.
You are solely responsible for securing and backing up your content.
Rights you are giving us to use material you upload
When you upload or post content to our site, you grant us the right to use that content through a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that user-generated content in connection with the service provided by the website and across different media.
We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them.
We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.
You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software.
You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.
Rules about linking to our site
You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.
You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
You must not establish a link to our site in any website that is not owned by you.
Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page.
We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.
The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out above.
If you wish to link to or make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact us at the contact details set out above.
Do not rely on information on this site
The content on our site is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up to date.
We are not responsible for websites we link to
Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them.
We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.
User-generated content is not approved by us
This website may include information and materials uploaded by other users of the site, including to bulletin boards and chat rooms. This information and these materials have not been verified or approved by us. The views expressed by other users on our site do not represent our views or values.
If you wish to complain about information and materials uploaded by other users please contact us at the contact details set out above.
Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you
Whether you are a consumer or a business user:
- We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
- Different limitations and exclusions of liability will apply to liability arising as a result of the supply of any products to you, which will be set out in our Terms and Conditions of Supply.
If you are a business user:
- We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
- We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
- use of, or inability to use, our site; or
- use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site.
- In particular, we will not be liable for:
- loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
- business interruption;
- loss of anticipated savings;
- loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
- any indirect or consequential loss or damage.
If you are a consumer user:
- Please note that we only provide our site for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
How we may use your personal information
We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy.
Breach of these terms
When we consider that a breach of these terms has occurred, we may take such action as we deem appropriate and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:
- Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our site.
- Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any Contribution uploaded by you to our site.
- Issue of a warning to you.
- Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach.
- Further legal action against you.
- Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as we reasonably feel is necessary or as required by law.
We exclude our liability for all action we may take in response to breaches of these terms. The actions we may take are not limited to those described above, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.
Which country’s laws apply to any disputes?
If you are a consumer, please note that these terms, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.
If you are a business, these terms, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
Our trademarks are registered
‘The Spirit Co’ is a trademark of Universal Wines and Spirits Limited. You are not permitted to use it without our approval, unless it is part of material you are using as permitted under the How you may use material on our site section above.By using our website, you (the visitor) agree to allow third parties to process your IP address, in order to determine your location for the purpose of currency conversion. You also agree to have that currency stored in a session cookie in your browser (a temporary cookie which gets automatically removed when you close your browser). We do this in order for the selected currency to remain selected and consistent when browsing our website so that the prices can convert to your (the visitor) local currency."
