Last updated: 6 October 2026
We attach great importance to transparent and reliable contractual foundations. The following therefore sets out which documents take precedence over one another. Individual agreements always take precedence.
- data processing agreements (DPA), insofar as the processing of personal data is concerned,
- individual contractual agreements,
- these General Terms and Conditions (GTC);
- the Terms of Use for the use of the digital Information Content and the Online Platform of RI Innovation GmbH, available at https://reimbursement.institute, https://reimbursement.info and https://app.reimbursement.info.
The Privacy Policy serves to provide information on the processing of personal data and is not affected by the above order of precedence.
In the event of conflicts, the higher-ranking provision shall prevail.
The inclusion of deviating, conflicting or supplementary terms and conditions of business and/or use of the Customer is expressly rejected; such terms shall only become part of the contract if their validity has been expressly confirmed by the Provider in text form (Textform within the meaning of § 126b of the German Civil Code (BGB), e.g. by email).
“Customer” within the meaning of these GTC is the natural or legal person, partnership or other entity not acting as a consumer that commissions services from the Provider, in particular management consulting, digital services or a Premium Agreement for the use of the Online Platform.
“Visitor” means any natural person who uses the Information Content or the Online Platform to a limited extent without registration, without being a Customer or a registered User.
Insofar as these GTC use terms from the Terms of Use, in particular “User”, “Organisation”, “Information Content”, “Online Platform”, “Basic Version”, “Premium Version”, “Separately Processed Data”, “Platform Components”, “Exports” and “Project-Related Work Results”, the definitions of the Terms of Use shall apply accordingly, unless these GTC expressly provide otherwise.
The GTC consist of the General Provisions (I.) and the Special Provisions for Management Consulting (II.).
Customers, Users and Visitors can access, save and print the currently applicable version of the GTC at https://reimbursement.institute/en/terms-and-conditions/
I. General Provisions
§ 1 Scope, Target Group, Contract Term and Choice of Law
(1) These General Terms and Conditions (“GTC”) apply to declarations of intent, contracts and legal transactions and acts similar to legal transactions, deliveries and other services of RI Innovation GmbH (hereinafter the “Provider”), Lehnengasse 20a, 50354 Hürth, Germany, vis-à-vis its Customers and the Users acting on their behalf. Vis-à-vis Visitors, these GTC apply only insofar as the Terms of Use refer to them.
(2) The Provider’s offers and services are expressly not directed at consumers within the meaning of § 13 BGB. By completing the registration process or concluding a contract, the Customer (or the User acting on its behalf) confirms that the services are commissioned or used for a commercial, institutional, freelance or other professional activity. The conclusion of contracts with consumers is excluded. If a person nevertheless concludes the contract as a consumer, the Provider shall be entitled to withdraw from the contract with immediate effect or to terminate it without notice.
(3) For the provision of paid digital services and platform subscriptions (in particular the Premium Version of the Online Platform), the initial contract term shall be twelve (12) months from invoicing, unless otherwise provided in the individual offer. The contract shall be extended by a further twelve (12) months in each case unless terminated by either party in text form (e.g. by email) with a notice period of 30 calendar days to the end of the respective term. The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. Consulting services (Part II.) are excluded from this automatic term and renewal mechanism; their termination is governed by § 6(4) of these GTC.
(4) Any collateral agreements, amendments, or additions to these terms and conditions must be in writing; individual agreements between the parties take precedence, subject to the General Terms and Conditions of Carriage (AVV).
(5) The business relationship between the Provider and the Customer is governed exclusively by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).
(6) To the extent permitted by law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from or in connection with contracts with the Provider shall be Cologne. The Provider is also entitled to sue the Customer at the Customer’s general place of jurisdiction.
(7) § 14 of the Terms of Use shall apply accordingly to amendments to these GTC.
§ 2 VAT, Invoicing and Payment
(1) Unless otherwise stated, the agreed fees, prices, subscription or premium charges are net amounts plus the statutory value added tax applicable at the time of invoicing.
(2) Unless otherwise agreed, invoice amounts are due without deduction within 14 days of invoicing. In the event of default in payment, the statutory provisions on default interest and damages shall apply. In the event of a default in payment that is not merely insignificant, the Provider shall be entitled, after a prior reminder and the setting of a reasonable deadline, to withhold or temporarily suspend services under the same contractual relationship in whole or in part, insofar as this is proportionate. This includes in particular the access of the user accounts assigned to the Customer or its Organisation to paid services of the Premium Version of the Online Platform, including by means of technical protective measures pursuant to § 11 of the Terms of Use, as well as the further performance of consulting projects, project phases, workshops, analyses and reporting and the release of work results not yet handed over. If payment is still not made after a reasonable grace period, the Provider may terminate the contract extraordinarily for good cause. Further statutory rights remain unaffected.
(3) The Provider shall always issue the Customer with an invoice, which is transmitted by default as a PDF file by email.
§ 3 Limitation of the Provider’s Liability
(1) The Provider is liable for material defects and defects of title in accordance with the statutory provisions. The Provider’s no-fault liability for defects already existing at the time the contract is concluded pursuant to § 536a(1), first alternative, BGB is excluded.
(2) The following applies to claims for damages outside of liability for defects:
a) The Provider shall be liable without limitation for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health, in cases of intent or gross negligence, in the case of guarantees assumed and for claims under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz).
b) In the event of a slightly negligent breach of a material contractual obligation (cardinal obligation – i.e. an obligation whose fulfilment is essential to the proper performance of the contract in the first place and on whose fulfilment the contracting party may regularly rely), the Provider’s liability shall be limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract at the time the contract was concluded.
c) In all other respects, the Provider’s liability for slight negligence is excluded. For services provided free of charge, in particular the freely available Information Content and the free Basic Version of the Online Platform, the above limitations of liability shall apply accordingly to the extent permitted by law. Insofar as statutory provisions on gratuitous services additionally apply to the free services, the statutory liability privileges provided therein in favour of the Provider vis-à-vis Users and Visitors remain unaffected.
(3) The Provider shall not be liable for damage or platform-related outages caused by events of force majeure, unforeseeable attacks by third parties on the IT infrastructure (e.g. distributed denial-of-service attacks / DDoS), disruptions of the internet or disruptions at cloud infrastructure providers and upstream network operators, provided that these lie outside the Provider’s reasonable sphere of influence and control and were not culpably caused by the Provider. The Provider’s liability for subcontractors under the AVV remains unaffected.
(4) The above liability provisions shall apply accordingly in favour of the Provider’s legal representatives, employees and vicarious agents.
§ 4 Set-Off and Right of Retention
The Customer shall only be entitled to set-off if its counterclaims have been finally established by a court, are undisputed or have been acknowledged by the Provider. The Customer shall only be entitled to exercise a right of retention insofar as its counterclaim is based on the same contractual relationship.
§ 5 Data Protection and Data Processing on Behalf
(1) To the extent that the provider processes personal data on its own behalf, it does so in accordance with the applicable privacy policy.
(2) To the extent that a user uploads or processes third-party personal data through the online platform, the customer or organization remains responsible for such data under data protection law.
(3) The Provider shall process such data exclusively in accordance with a separate data processing agreement (DPA). The conclusion of a valid DPA is a prerequisite for uploading and processing Separately Processed Data insofar as such data contain personal data. Details are set out in the DPA and the Terms of Use.
II. Special Provisions – Management Consulting
§ 6 Engagement and Determination of Completion of the Engagement
(1) In the area of management consulting, a binding contract is concluded when the Provider accepts the offer signed by the Customer by means of an order confirmation in text form. This order confirmation defines the expected project times, the earliest possible project start and an expected completion date.
(2) The specific task, the project-specific approach, the type of work results and the remuneration are determined by the respective agreement in text form (offer/order confirmation). Subsequent changes, additions or extensions to the scope of services require confirmation in text form.
(3) The Provider’s consulting services shall be deemed to have been rendered in full once the contractually agreed analyses, conclusions and recommendations have been prepared and explained or transmitted to the Customer. Whether or when the Customer implements the conclusions or recommendations in practice is irrelevant to the performance of the services and the entitlement to fees.
(4) The consulting contract ends upon complete performance of the agreed services (para. 3). The right of both parties to terminate for good cause remains unaffected. If the contract ends prematurely, the Provider retains its entitlement to remuneration for the services rendered up to that point; § 628 BGB remains unaffected.
§ 7 Customer’s Duties to Cooperate and Non-Solicitation
(1) The Customer undertakes to support the Provider’s consulting activities to the best of its ability. In particular, the Customer shall, free of charge and in good time, create all conditions within its operational sphere and sphere of influence (e.g. provision of data, documents and contact persons) that are necessary for the proper performance of the services.
(2) Non-solicitation: The Customer undertakes, for the duration of the collaboration and for a period of 24 months after its termination, not to directly or indirectly solicit, hire or independently engage, outside this contractual relationship, any permanent employees of the Provider or other persons permanently engaged by the Provider to perform its obligations. For each case of culpable breach, the Customer undertakes to pay an appropriate contractual penalty to be determined by the Provider and, in the event of a dispute, to be reviewed by the competent court.
§ 8 Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure
(1) The Provider is obliged to treat as strictly confidential all of the Customer’s operational and business secrets made available to it in the course of the consulting engagement.
(2) If an employee or vicarious agent of the Provider culpably breaches this confidentiality obligation, his or her conduct shall be attributed to the Provider in accordance with the statutory provisions. The Provider’s liability is governed by § 3 of these GTC.
(3) The Customer, for its part, undertakes to treat as confidential all non-public information of the Provider that becomes accessible to it in the course of the collaboration, in particular methods, analytical logic, data structures, calculations, presentations, concepts, platform information, business secrets and other confidential information, and not to use such information outside the contractually agreed purpose or make it accessible to third parties. This obligation shall continue to apply after the end of the collaboration.
§ 9 Protection of Consulting Results
(1) The reports, plans, drafts, statements and calculations prepared by the Provider in the course of management consulting may be used by the Customer exclusively for the contractually agreed purposes. Any use, exploitation or publication of these results outside the scope of the contract requires the Provider’s prior express consent in text form. This applies irrespective of whether or not the service rendered is subject to special statutory property rights (e.g. copyright).
(2) Insofar as consulting results contain extracts, representations, analyses or other results created using the Online Platform, the Information Content or Platform Components, the usage restrictions of § 4(5), § 5 and § 5a of the Terms of Use shall additionally apply, in particular with regard to Exports, Platform Components, Information Content, Project-Related Work Results, Interfaces and impermissible further exploitation.
