Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your company's ("you", "your") use of the Lotus auction platform ("Lotus", "the Service"), which is operated by The Foundry ("we", "us"), 22b Taha Hussein, Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt. You can reach us through our Contact page (lot-us.bid/contact), by phone on +20 12 90011016, or by email at support@thefoundry.run. The contract is concluded as soon as the two parties exchange two matching expressions of will (Article 89 of the Civil Code). You express your acceptance of these Terms on behalf of your company electronically, by signing in to Lotus or by buying credits, and you confirm you have the authority to do so; an expression of will may be made by adopting a course of conduct that leaves no doubt as to its meaning (Article 90 of the Civil Code). These Terms are an electronic document within the meaning of Law No. 15 of 2004 on E-signature.

Lotus is a multi-tenant web platform that enables your company to manage auctions, invite buyers, and exchange WhatsApp messages with those buyers through the Meta WhatsApp Business API. Lotus is a tool that facilitates auctions between you and your buyers — it is not itself a party to those auctions and does not take title to, hold custody of, or settle payment for any auctioned goods.

Your super admin or company admin is responsible for creating and managing seller accounts for your team. You are responsible for the confidentiality of account credentials, all activity that occurs under your accounts, and ensuring that each user accesses Lotus only with their own credentials.

You retain ownership of the data you and your team enter into Lotus, including buyer records, auction details and message content. Under Egypt's Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 151 of 2020), your company is the controller of its buyers' personal data and is responsible for the controller's obligations. In particular, you must:

• rest the processing of each buyer's personal data on one of the cases in Article 6 of that Law, such as the data subject's consent, before you enter it into Lotus;
• obtain each buyer's consent to the cross-border transfer of their personal data described in Section 6 of the Privacy Policy;
• for any electronic direct marketing to a buyer, obtain the data subject's explicit consent to receive marketing communications, state in each message your identity as the sender and a valid way to contact you, give the buyer a clear way to withdraw that consent, and keep electronic records evidencing the data subject's consent for three years from the date of the last sending (Articles 17 and 18 of that Law and its Executive Regulations);
• honour every withdrawal of consent and every objection without delay, including by marking the buyer inactive in Lotus;
• obtain any licence the Personal Data Protection Center requires for your activity.

The content you upload (images, descriptions, broadcasts) must not infringe the rights of others or applicable law, and you must not enter false or misleading information about goods auctioned through the Service.

For buyers' personal data, The Foundry is your processor under Article 5 of the Personal Data Protection Law, and these Terms are our agreement with you for that processing. We will:

• process buyers' personal data only to provide the Service to you and according to your instructions, given through your use of the Service and in writing, and not for any other purpose of our own;
• keep it confidential, and give access to it only to platform operators who need it;
• protect it with the data security measures in Section 9 of the Privacy Policy;
• use only the sub-processors listed in Section 5 of the Privacy Policy, and update that list before adding a new one;
• help you respond to buyers' requests to exercise their rights within the period the Law sets, and pass to you any such request that reaches us;
• inform you without delay of any breach or violation of buyers' personal data, and help you meet your own obligation to report it;
• at the end of the processing period, erase buyers' personal data or, at your written request made before erasure, hand it over to you, except for what the law requires us to keep.

Your use of Lotus is subject to the Acceptable Use Policy. Violations may result in suspension or termination under Section 12.

Lotus is paid for with prepaid credits bought on your Billing page, at the prices shown there. All prices are in Egyptian pounds (EGP) and you are charged in EGP; if your card was issued in another currency, your bank converts the amount and may charge its own fee. You can pay by card through our payment provider Paymob Solutions S.A.E. ("Paymob"), or by bank transfer. Card details are entered on Paymob's secure payment page over an encrypted connection; Paymob is a PCI DSS-compliant payment processor, and card numbers never reach our servers. Any value added tax or other tax due under Egyptian law will be shown on the invoice as required by law. Refunds are governed by the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

Credits are a digital service. Nothing is shipped. Credits bought by card appear on your Billing page as soon as the payment is confirmed, normally within a minute; credits bought by bank transfer appear once we confirm the transfer. If paid credits do not appear within 24 hours, contact billing@thefoundry.run.

We aim to keep Lotus continuously available but do not warrant uninterrupted operation. The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." We do not guarantee bid delivery within any specific time window, buyer responsiveness, or outcomes of any auction.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party will be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages. Our aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or related to the Service is limited to the fees you paid us in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. These exclusions and this limit do not apply to liability arising from a party's fraud or gross fault (gross negligence), as Article 217 of the Civil Code provides, nor to liability arising from an unlawful act (tort), which no clause may exclude.

You will indemnify and hold us harmless from claims arising out of your use of the Service, your data, your auctions, or your communications with buyers — including any claim that an auctioned good is defective, misrepresented, or unlawful.

We may suspend your access if you breach these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, or operate in a manner that places the Service or other tenants at risk. If you breach these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, the parties expressly agree that the contract shall be deemed automatically dissolved without judicial intervention and without notice (Article 158 of the Civil Code), from the date we inform your company admin in writing of the termination. You may terminate at any time by writing to legal@thefoundry.run; erasure of your data is governed by the Privacy Policy.

We may update these Terms as the Service evolves. We will post the updated Terms at lot-us.bid/terms with a new "last updated" date, and we will notify company admins by email before any material change takes effect. If you do not accept a change, you may stop using the Service before it takes effect, and we will refund your unused, unexpired paid credits at the price you paid for them (Section 3 of the Refund & Cancellation Policy). Continued use after the change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Arab Republic of Egypt, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms falls within the jurisdiction of the competent Egyptian courts, including the Economic Courts where they have jurisdiction.

Email legal@thefoundry.run for legal questions, billing@thefoundry.run for payments and refunds, and support@thefoundry.run for operational issues. You can also reach us through our Contact page (lot-us.bid/contact) or by phone on +20 12 90011016.