Terms and Conditions
Last updated: 6 May 2026
Available in English, French, German, and Italian. In case of any discrepancy between translations, the English version prevails.
1. Agreement Overview
These Terms and Conditions govern the professional services provided by Aru Bhardwaj — including Fractional CTO engagements, AI and data science development, technical advisory, and infrastructure implementation. By engaging these services, you agree to be bound by these terms alongside any Project Proposal, Statement of Work, or separate agreement signed between the parties.
2. Services Provided
Services include, but are not limited to:
- Fractional CTO Leadership and Technical Roadmap Strategy
- Infrastructure Architecture and Sovereign Cloud Implementation (OVHcloud, Scaleway, Hetzner, multi-cloud)
- Technical Due Diligence and AI Regulatory Compliance advisory (EU AI Act, GDPR/RGPD, NIS2, DORA)
- AI, LLM, and Generative AI development (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, self-hosted models)
- RAG pipelines, agentic systems, and vector-database architecture
- Machine learning model development and predictive analytics
- MVP and rapid-prototyping builds for startups and scale-ups
- Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision solutions
- Data engineering, ETL pipelines, and analytics platforms
3. Payment Terms
Project-Based Engagements: Payment terms will be specified in the Project Proposal. Typically, fixed-scope projects require 50% upfront payment before work begins, with the remainder due upon project completion or at agreed milestones.
Retainer Services: For ongoing Fractional CTO engagements, invoices are issued at the beginning of each month and are due within 7 days. Services may be paused if the retainer is not settled by the invoice due date. Retainers are prepaid and non-refundable once the month has commenced.
Consultations: One-off consultations (30 or 60 minute calls) are prepaid in full via the website booking flow before the session is scheduled.
Late Payments: Late payments may incur a 2% monthly service charge. Work may be suspended for accounts more than 30 days overdue and suspended engagements may be terminated after 60 days of non-payment, with all deliverables released only after the outstanding balance is cleared.
Currency & VAT: All payments are due in EUR unless otherwise specified. French TVA/VAT is added where applicable; EU B2B clients with a valid intra-community VAT number benefit from reverse charge per Article 196 of the EU VAT Directive.
4. Refund Policy
Important: Refunds are not possible after 15 days from the date of payment. This policy applies to all services and consultations.
Refund requests must be submitted within 15 days of payment and will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Refunds may be considered only if:
- No substantial work has been delivered
- The project cannot be completed due to technical impossibility
- Mutual agreement to terminate the project is reached
Prorated refunds only: Where a refund is granted following mutual termination, it will be calculated on a prorated basis — time already invested, delivered work, and any non-recoverable third-party costs (API credits, cloud infrastructure, third-party licences, paid tools, or reserved GPU capacity) will be deducted from the refunded amount.
Fixed-price project deposits: The 50% upfront deposit on fixed-price projects is non-refundable once work has commenced. This deposit covers the immediate engagement cost, scoping and discovery time, priority calendar blocking, and resource allocation — and is not recoverable even in the event of mutual termination.
Even partial work delivered will be charged at the agreed hourly rate. Monthly retainers, once invoiced and the month commenced, are non-refundable.
5. Project Scope and Changes
Project scope will be clearly defined in the Project Proposal or Statement of Work. Any changes to the scope must be agreed upon in writing and may result in additional charges.
Change Requests: Additional work beyond the original scope will be billed at the agreed hourly rate or as a separate project.
6. Intellectual Property
Final Deliverables: Upon full payment, the Client will own all final deliverables created specifically for their project — including custom code, bespoke model weights, documentation, and project-specific architecture.
Pre-Existing Tools & Standard Libraries: The Client does not acquire ownership of, and shall not claim rights over, any pre-existing tools, frameworks, scripts, boilerplate code, internal libraries, methodologies, or know-how authored by Aru Bhardwaj prior to or outside the scope of the engagement (collectively, "Standard Libraries"). Where Standard Libraries are incorporated into Final Deliverables, the Client is granted a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, modify, and distribute them solely as an integrated part of the delivered project. Standard Libraries remain the sole property of Aru Bhardwaj and may be reused in other engagements.
Third-Party Components: Final Deliverables may include open-source components and third-party APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, cloud provider SDKs, etc.) governed by their respective licences and terms — those remain under their original terms and are passed through to the Client as-is.
Client-Provided Materials: The Client is responsible for ensuring they have the right to use any data, content, or materials provided for the project, and warrants that such materials do not infringe third-party rights.
7. Confidentiality
All client information, data, and project details will be kept strictly confidential. Mutual non-disclosure agreements may be signed upon request and are standard practice for any substantial engagement. Client data, source code, product ideas, and internal documents will not be shared, sold, or distributed to third parties, and will not be used to train models or improve third-party services without explicit written consent.
8. Limitation of Liability
While all reasonable professional care is taken in every deliverable, liability is limited to the total amount paid by the Client for the specific project or the preceding three months of retainer fees, whichever is lower. Aru Bhardwaj is not responsible for:
- Indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages
- Loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, or business opportunities
- Data loss due to Client system failures or Client-managed backups
- Third-party service interruptions (cloud providers, APIs, model vendors)
- Changes in third-party model behaviour, pricing, deprecation, or availability
AI & LLM Output Disclaimer:
The Client acknowledges that AI and Large Language Model (LLM) outputs are inherently probabilistic and may produce inaccurate, biased, or hallucinated content. While Aru Bhardwaj implements industry best-practice guardrails (evaluation harnesses, grounding, safety filters, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and observability), the Client is solely responsible for final validation, human review, and editorial sign-off of AI-generated content before any public, regulatory, or commercial use. This includes compliance with the EU AI Act, sector-specific regulations, and Client's own internal policies.
9. Termination
Either party may terminate a project engagement with 7 days written notice. For ongoing Fractional CTO retainers, either party may terminate with 30 days written notice to allow an orderly handover. Upon termination, payment is due for all work completed and all retainer periods commenced up to the termination date. All deliverables completed will be provided to the Client upon settlement of the outstanding balance.
10. Communication and Support
Regular project updates will be provided via email or the agreed communication channel (Slack, Teams, async tools). Response time for communications is typically 24-48 hours during business days.
Business Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM CET. Urgent matters outside business hours should be flagged explicitly.
11. Governing Law
These terms are governed by French law. Any disputes will be resolved through good-faith negotiation first, then — if unresolved — through arbitration in Paris, France, or the competent French courts. This jurisdiction choice is deliberate: it aligns with EU data-sovereignty principles and provides both parties with a neutral, well-established legal framework.
12. Contact Information
Email: bonjour@arubhardwaj.eu
Phone: +33 (0) 766985210
Address: Paris, France
13. Alternative Compensation (Equity)
Where specifically agreed in a Project Proposal or Partnership Agreement, compensation may include — in addition to the mandatory service fee — equity vesting.
Such alternative-compensation arrangements will be governed by a separate Shareholders' Agreement or Partnership Agreement signed between the parties, which shall supersede these general terms where they conflict on matters of compensation, vesting, cliffs, acceleration, and exit events.
For the avoidance of doubt: a service fee component is always present in every engagement. Pure-equity arrangements without a cash service-fee component are not offered.
14. Editorial Content & No Legal Advice
The Insightrix website may publish editorial content including blog posts, research drafts, technical commentary, and case studies on subjects such as the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), French and other Member-State sectoral laws, and related regulatory frameworks. Such content is provided for general information only.
Editorial content does NOT constitute legal, regulatory, financial, tax, or professional advice and does NOT establish any attorney-client, advisor-client, fiduciary, or other professional relationship. Regulatory frameworks evolve continuously and depend on jurisdiction, sector, and specific facts that no general publication can address. Any reliance on editorial content is at the reader's own risk.
For binding guidance on your particular situation, you must consult a qualified lawyer, accountant, data protection officer, or your competent supervisory authority (such as the CNIL in France, the European Data Protection Board, or the relevant national AI Act authority).
The author and Insightrix SASU make no warranty of accuracy, completeness, currency, or fitness for purpose of editorial content and disclaim, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, all liability arising from any reliance placed upon it.
Privacy and data-handling practices applicable to use of the website (including form submissions, analytics, and cookies) are described in the Legal Notice and any privacy notice published from time to time on the website.
By engaging these services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to these Terms and Conditions. These terms may be updated periodically, and clients will be notified by email of any material changes at least 30 days before they take effect for existing engagements.