Términos y condiciones

These terms govern the use of www.parousiagroup.com and of the regional sites operated on the same codebase: westafrica, eastafrica, europe, americas, middleeast and apac.parousiagroup.com. They are published by Parousia Group, entered in the trade and personal property credit register of Kinshasa/Gombe under number RCCM CD/KNG/RCCM/21-B-02650, whose registered office is at 157, avenue du Livre, Quartier Révolution, Commune de la Gombe, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The information required by Article 5 of Directive 2000/31/EC — identification of the publisher, hosting arrangements, contact details and the designated point of contact — is set out in the legal notice.

The terms defined below carry the same meaning throughout this document.

• •“The group”, “Parousia Group” — the publisher of this site, whose registered office is at 157, avenue du Livre, Kinshasa – Gombe, Democratic Republic of the Congo, together with the companies it controls.
• •“The site”, “the sites” — www.parousiagroup.com and the regional sites operated on the same codebase, listed above.
• •“The regional companies” — Parousia West Africa (Lagos), Parousia East Africa (Nairobi), Parousia Europe (London), Parousia America Inc. (New York), Parousia Middle East (Dubai) and Echad Technologies (Singapore), each established and registered under the law of the country named beside it.
• •“The solutions” — the six solutions the group operates: NetVox Intelligence, Global Technology Africa, Afrika Plaza, PAGEXPRESS, PAGPay and INTIC. They are solutions, not companies and not separate legal persons, and they do not contract in their own name.
• •“Visitor”, “you” — any person who accesses a page of the site, whatever the means used and whether or not that person acts in the course of a trade, business or profession.
• •“Content” — everything the group publishes on the site: text, structure, code, photographs, film sequences, illustrations, logotypes and documents.
• •“Submission” — everything a visitor sends the group through one of the three forms open on the site: the contact form, the job application form and the newsletter subscription form.
• •“These terms” — the present document, in the version published on the site and identified by the version number and the effective date shown at its head.

Using the site amounts to accepting these terms. That acceptance is not collected by a separate act: no account is opened, no box is presented and no consent is recorded in order to display a public page. A person who does not accept these terms does not use the site.

The site is an institutional publication. It describes the group, its regional companies, the six solutions it operates, its open roles and its newsroom, and it says how to reach it. It is not a customer portal, and no part of it is reserved to an identified user: there is no account, no registration, no credentials, no login and no private area. Should the group open an area reserved to identified users, the conditions applying to it would be published before that area opened, and they would not amend these terms retroactively.

Nothing on this site is sold, and nothing on it is an offer capable of being accepted. The pages describing NetVox Intelligence, Global Technology Africa, Afrika Plaza, PAGEXPRESS, PAGPay and INTIC describe solutions the group operates; they are an invitation to make contact, not a quotation and not a commitment on price, availability, scope or performance.

A commercial relationship with the group is formed by a written agreement signed by the parties, and by that alone. Where such an agreement exists it governs — including scope, service levels, warranties and liability — and these terms neither amend it nor add to it. Where the two would conflict, the signed agreement prevails.

Directive (EU) 2019/770 governs contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services. None is concluded here: the site carries no ordering path, no payment page and no subscription, and access to it is not given in exchange for personal data. Statements published in the newsroom or in the investors section are informational; the group is not listed on any exchange and nothing on this site is an invitation to invest or a solicitation of funds.

The text, structure, code, photographs, film sequences, illustrations and logotypes of this site are protected works. They belong to Parousia Group or to the parties that licensed them to the group. Protection arises from the creation of the work and requires neither registration nor notice, under the Berne Convention; it does not depend on a copyright symbol appearing on a page.

• •The names Parousia Group and Echad Technologies, the names of the group’s regional companies, and the names of the six solutions it operates — NetVox Intelligence, Global Technology Africa, Afrika Plaza, PAGEXPRESS, PAGPay and INTIC — together with the logotypes and the wave artwork used across the site, are marks of the group and are used under its control.
• •Marks belonging to third parties may be named on the site to identify their holder. They remain the property of that holder, and naming them asserts no right over them and no relationship that is not stated in writing elsewhere.
• •The typefaces are third-party works used under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and packaged with the site rather than fetched from a font service. That licence covers the typefaces alone; it extends neither to the group’s content nor to its marks.

The site also incorporates software components published by third parties under their own licences, and photographic and film material used under the rights the group holds or has obtained. For each such work, the licence granted by its holder governs the use that may be made of it, and it prevails over this section to the extent of what it covers. A licence obtained by the group for the operation of the site grants no right to a visitor beyond what section permitted-use allows.

Using the group’s names or logotypes in a publication — a press article, a partner page, a procurement document, a presentation — requires written permission, which is requested at press@parousiagroup.com. Permission is not required to name the group in a factual statement, to quote a passage under section permitted-use, or to link to a page. Save for what is expressly granted in these terms, no right over the content or over the marks of the group is transferred to a visitor.

Any visitor may read, print, save and link to any page of this site. A reasonable extract may be quoted for information, comment, teaching, research or reporting, provided the source is named and the extract is not altered in a way that changes its sense. Search engines may index the site: robots.txt allows every user agent and excludes only the /api/ paths, which handle the forms and serve no page.

The following are not permitted.

• •Reproducing a substantial part of the site, or extracting it systematically, in order to publish a site that competes with it or derives from it.
• •Text and data mining of the site for purposes other than scientific research within the meaning of Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2019/790. The group expressly reserves the rights conferred on it by Article 4(3) of that Directive, over the whole of the site and over each of its pages.
• •Circumventing the rate limits on the forms, submitting through them automatically, or using them to send unsolicited commercial messages.
• •Submitting the contact details of a person who has not asked to be contacted, or an electronic address that is not yours.
• •Probing, scanning or testing the security of the site or of the infrastructure serving it without written authorisation, and any attempt to reach a part of it that is not public.
• •Uploading a file that contains malicious code, or a file whose real format differs from the one it declares.
• •Presenting oneself as an employee, agent, reseller or partner of the group, or using its marks so as to suggest an approval, a sponsorship or an affiliation that does not exist.
• •Displaying a page of this site inside another site in a way that suggests the content is that other site’s own.

Where the site is used in breach of this section, the group may restrict or refuse access to it, refuse a submission or delete it, and exercise the remedies available to it in law. Where the use is a criminal offence, the group may report it to the competent authority. These measures are taken by the Legal Department, which states the ground on which it acts to a visitor who asks.

Three channels are open to a visitor, and no other. The table below states, for each of them, what it accepts, the limit it applies and what becomes of a submission.

You keep every right you hold in what you send. To deal with your request the group needs a limited permission: by sending a message, an application or a subscription, you grant Parousia Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, translate and pass on that content within the group and to the contact, recruitment or mailing system it uses, for the sole purpose of answering you or assessing your application.

That licence covers nothing else. It does not allow the group to publish your submission, to use it in a marketing document, to quote it in a commercial proposal or to pass it to a third party for that party’s own purposes, and it ends when the purpose it was granted for ends. The site publishes nothing a visitor sends: it carries no comment, no forum and no user page.

In sending it, you state that you are entitled to send it: that the content is yours or that you may lawfully communicate it, that it is not unlawful, and that any personal data it carries about someone else — a referee, a former manager, a colleague — is data you may lawfully pass on. The group may refuse, delete or leave unanswered a submission that is unlawful, abusive or automated.

The processing of personal data contained in a submission is governed by the privacy policy and, where it applies, by Regulation (EU) 2016/679, not by this licence. A licence to use content is not a legal basis for processing personal data within the meaning of Article 6 of that Regulation. Requests concerning personal data are handled by the Data Protection Office at contact@parousiagroup.com.

The site links to the sites of the solutions the group operates, to the sites of its regional companies, and to the group’s pages on LinkedIn, X, YouTube and Facebook.

A page of this site makes no outbound request: no content delivery network, no font service, no analytics, no third-party widget, no embedded player. That property stops at the link. Once you follow one you are on a service the group does not operate, whose content, availability, security and data practices are its own, and which may set cookies and record your visit.

A link is not an endorsement. The group is not the publisher of a linked site within the meaning of Article 5 of Directive 2000/31/EC, it exercises no control over its content and it does not monitor that content continuously. Where a link is broken, points somewhere it should not, or leads to content that is unlawful, write to the Legal Department at contact@parousiagroup.com; the notice mechanism set out in the legal notice applies to links as it does to pages.

Linking to a page of this site is permitted, provided the link identifies the group as the source, does not alter the page and does not suggest an approval, a sponsorship or an affiliation that does not exist. The group may ask for a link to be removed where it does not meet those conditions, and it does so through the Legal Department.

The site is published without any commitment of continuity. The group does not guarantee that it will be reachable at a given moment, that it will remain reachable, or that a page, a document or a section will be kept in place. Content is added, corrected and withdrawn, and a page that exists today may not exist next month.

Access to the site is free of charge and requires no equipment other than a browser and a connection, the cost of which is borne by the visitor. There is no service level for this website, and none is implied by the service levels the group agrees contractually with its customers for the solutions it operates. Those live in the contract concerned and are owed to the party that signed it; a corporate site is not covered by them and cannot be invoked to establish them.

Maintenance, a security correction, a change of infrastructure or a legal obligation may interrupt access without notice. Where an interruption is planned and long, the group announces it on the site concerned when it is able to.

These terms apply for as long as the site is used, and no formality is required to end that use: leaving the site ends it. The group may at any time, and without compensation, restrict or suspend access to all or part of a site, withdraw a page or a document, or cease to publish a site — in particular for maintenance or security, where these terms are breached, or where a legal obligation or a decision of a competent authority requires it. Where a restriction affects an identified visitor, the Legal Department states the ground on which it was decided.

The end of that use, a suspension or the closure of a site leaves in force the provisions of these terms which are intended to survive it: intellectual property, the licence granted over a submission and its limits, the exclusions and limitations of liability, the indemnity, the governing law and the jurisdiction clause, and the miscellaneous provisions.

The content of this site is published for information. The group writes it with care and corrects it when it is shown to be wrong, and it does not warrant that every page is complete, current or free of error at the moment you read it. A description of a solution, an office, a role or a date can be overtaken by a decision taken the same week.

A statement of what the group intends to do is an intention, not an undertaking. Nothing published here obliges the group to build, launch, continue or maintain anything, and no page of this site may be relied upon in place of a written agreement or of a written answer given to a question you have asked.

To the extent the applicable law allows, the group is not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from the use of this site or from the impossibility of using it — in particular loss of profit, loss of opportunity, loss of data or loss of reputation — nor for a decision taken on the strength of a page rather than of a signed agreement or of a written answer from the group. The group is not liable either for a loss caused by a fault of the visitor, by the act of a third party the group does not control, or by an event of force majeure within the meaning of section severability.

Where a visitor uses the site in breach of these terms and a third party brings a claim against the group on that account, that visitor holds the group harmless from the damage, the costs and the reasonable legal expenses directly caused by the breach. The undertaking is limited to what is attributable to the visitor’s own fault, it does not extend to a loss caused by the group, and it applies to a person acting outside a trade, business or profession only within the limits allowed by the mandatory law of the country in which that person is habitually resident. The group informs the visitor of a claim it intends to rely on and does not settle such a claim at that visitor’s expense without their written agreement.

The group may change these terms. The version in force is the one published here, identified by the version number and the effective date shown at the head of the document. A change takes effect on publication and does not apply retroactively to a submission already sent, which stays governed by the version in force on the day it was sent.

There is no account on this site and no individual notification is therefore sent. The version number and the effective date shown at the head of the document identify the applicable version, and both change whenever the text does. Continuing to use the site after a change amounts to accepting the version in force.

Section identifiers are stable. A citation of the form /legal/terms#user-content designates the same passage after a revision as before it; where a section is removed, its identifier is not reused for another. Previous versions are kept by the Group Secretariat and are provided on written request to contact@parousiagroup.com.

These terms are governed by the law of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the group has its seat, together with the OHADA uniform acts applicable there and, for what concerns electronic communication to the public, Ordonnance-loi n° 23/010 du 13 mars 2023 portant code du numérique. That choice is made under Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 (Rome I) where that Regulation applies. The courts of Kinshasa – Gombe have jurisdiction over a dispute arising from the use of this site.

That designation does not deprive a person acting outside a trade, business or profession of the protection of the mandatory rules of the country in which they are habitually resident. In the European Union, Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 (Rome I) preserves those rules and Articles 17 to 19 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 allow a consumer to bring proceedings before the courts of their own domicile and to be sued only there. Equivalent protections exist in other jurisdictions and are not displaced by this section.

Where a regional site is published by a regional company of the group — Parousia West Africa, Parousia East Africa, Parousia Europe, Parousia America, Parousia Middle East or Echad Technologies — the mandatory law of the country in which that company is established applies to that site to the extent it goes further than this section.

A dispute concerning the use of this site is first stated in writing to the Legal Department at contact@parousiagroup.com, or by post to the group’s seat, setting out what is complained of and what is asked for. The Legal Department acknowledges the complaint within five working days and states in that acknowledgement what it intends to do and by when. This step is a means of settling the matter without proceedings; it is not a condition of access to a court, it does not suspend a limitation period, and it does not prevent either party from applying to a court for an interim measure.

No provision of these terms requires a visitor to submit a dispute to arbitration, to renounce a collective remedy available under the law applicable to them, or to give up a right of appeal. A term of this document which has not been individually negotiated is assessed against the rules protecting consumers from unfair terms — in the European Union, Council Directive 93/13/EEC — and a term held unfair is not binding on the person it was drafted against.

This document is authoritative in English and in French. Neither version is a translation of the other for the purpose of interpretation, and the two versions are read together.

Where the two diverge, the French version prevails before the courts designated in section governing-law. Before any other forum, the divergence is resolved in the sense most favourable to the person who did not draft the document — the rule Article 5 of Council Directive 93/13/EEC states for consumers, applied here to every reader.

The site interface is served in twelve languages. Legal documents are published in English and in French only; where the language chosen for the interface has no version of its own, a notice is displayed on the document and refers the reader to the authoritative versions. A translation of this document into another language is provided for information and produces no legal effect.

If a provision of these terms is held void, unlawful or unenforceable by a competent court, it is reduced to what makes it enforceable or, failing that, severed. The other provisions continue to apply, and the severed provision does not carry them with it.

That the group does not enforce a provision on one occasion is not a waiver of it and does not prevent it from enforcing it later. A waiver is effective only if it is given in writing and by a person authorised to give it. These terms, with the legal notice, the privacy policy and the cookie policy to which they refer, are the whole of what the group publishes for the use of this site; they do not replace, and do not amend, an agreement signed with the group.

The group may assign these terms, and the rights and obligations they carry, to another company of the group or to a third party acquiring the business to which the site relates, provided the assignment does not reduce the rights of a visitor. A visitor may not assign the rights they hold under these terms without the written agreement of the group. The rights and obligations set out here are those of the group and of the visitor, and no third party may rely on them.

Neither party answers for the failure to perform an obligation under these terms which is caused by an event beyond its control that it could not reasonably foresee or avoid — in particular a natural event, an armed conflict, a measure of a public authority, a general failure of the electricity supply or of electronic communications networks, or a large-scale attack on the infrastructure serving the site. Performance of the obligation is suspended for as long as the event lasts, and the party concerned informs the other as soon as it is able to.

Section titles and section identifiers are there to allow a passage to be found and cited; they do not affect the meaning of the provisions they head.

Questions about this document, and notices concerning something published on the site, are received by the Legal Department at the addresses below. That department is also the single point of contact designated by the group on the model of Articles 11 and 12 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, for authorities and for readers alike, and it can be addressed in English and in French. The identification of the publisher, the hosting arrangements and the notice mechanism are set out in the legal notice.