Terms of use

2The role of the platform

The operator runs a marketplace and the document trail around it. It is not a party to the sale or the works contract concluded between two companies, it does not act as anyone's agent, and it does not trade steel or fabrication on its own account.

The operator does not hold, receive or pass on money belonging to the parties. Payment is made directly between buyer and seller by bank transfer; the platform records the proof of transfer and the operator's confirmation that it was reported. Escrow and in-platform payments are not part of this version of the service.

3Eligibility and company verification

The platform is for companies. An account is opened on behalf of a registered legal entity, by someone authorised to bind it.

A company must pass verification before it can transact. Verification means uploading the certificate of incorporation, a valid bookkeeping approval and confirmation of signatory authority, and having the operator approve them. Until then the company may read the catalog, the tender headlines and company profiles, and may not publish listings or tenders, send price requests, or submit offers.

The operator may reject or block a company whose documents cannot be verified or which breaches these terms. A blocked company keeps read access to the record of the deals it has already concluded.

4Accounts, users and permissions

Each user belongs to exactly one company and holds one role in it. An owner manages users, the company profile and billing, and can do everything a manager can. A manager does the operational work. A viewer reads and changes nothing.

Sign-in credentials are personal and must not be shared. Two-factor authentication protects the account and is required where the platform says so. A company answers for what its users do under its account and must remove users who have left it.

5Listings and tenders

A supplier is responsible for every listing it publishes being accurate: category, standard and grade, dimensions, tonnage available and minimum lot, country of manufacture, location, condition, and the certificates attached to it. A price is never published on a listing — it is given in answer to a price request.

A contractor is responsible for the drawings and specifications it attaches to a tender, and for having the right to share them with the fabricators who can see that tender. An invite-only tender is visible only to the companies invited to it.

The operator may hide a listing, a tender or a public question that is misleading, unlawful or outside the purpose of the platform, and will tell the author why.

6Offers and deals

An offer is a firm quotation for its stated validity — 48 hours by default, and between 24 and 72 hours by agreement. Steel prices move, and an offer that outlived its market would be worse than no offer at all. An offer not accepted in time expires by itself.

Accepting an offer opens a deal between the two companies on the terms of that offer. The commercial contract is concluded between the parties themselves; in this version the signed contract is uploaded as a scan, and electronic signature is not offered.

A deal moves through a fixed sequence of states, and every change is written to an audit log that nobody can edit or delete. Where the amount is settled from the weighing ticket, it is adjusted within the tolerance recorded on the deal; an adjustment beyond that tolerance needs the buyer's confirmation.

Where the platform confirms acceptance of a delivery automatically after five business days of silence, that is a platform mechanism and it is recorded as one. It moves the deal forward; it decides nothing about quality or conformity between the parties.

7Documents and retention

Deal documents — tax invoices, delivery notes, weighing tickets, mill certificates, acceptance acts and payment proofs — are kept for seven years, the period Israeli tax law expects of the parties' records.

Chat messages and audit events are append-only. They cannot be edited or deleted by anyone, the operator included, because they are the evidence a dispute is decided on.

Uploaded files must be of an accepted type and within the published size limit. Private files — verification documents, deal documents, tender drawings, chat attachments — are served only to the parties to the object they belong to, and to the operator while a dispute is open.

8Payments and platform commission

Payment runs directly between the parties. The buyer uploads proof of the transfer, the seller confirms receipt, and the operator marks the payment confirmed. That mark records what the parties reported; it is not a bank confirmation that funds have cleared.

The operator charges a success fee on deals concluded through the platform. It is charged to the seller and invoiced outside the platform. A supplier subscription may also apply after any free introductory period.

Open for legal drafting: the commission rate for each circuit, the payment terms of the operator's own invoice, and the VAT treatment.

9Disputes and operator decisions

Either party to a deal may open a dispute. Opening one freezes the release of funds recorded on the deal and lets the operator join the deal thread.

The operator reviews the record — documents, audit log and thread — and decides whether the deal returns to the state it was in or is cancelled. That decision governs the state of the deal on the platform. It is not arbitration, and it does not replace the parties' rights under their contract or under the law.

10Prohibited conduct

Not allowed: publishing commercial information you know to be false; uploading files you have no right to share; using the platform to fix prices, split customers or pass commercially sensitive information to a competitor; bulk-extracting other companies' data; trying to reach data you are not a party to; and sending unsolicited commercial messages through the platform.

There is no open, market-wide chat room on this platform, and that is a decision rather than an omission: a room where competitors discuss prices is a competition-law risk for everyone in it.

11Intellectual property

The platform, its interface and the operator's own content remain the operator's. A company keeps every right in what it uploads and grants the operator only the licence needed to run the service: to store the material, show it to the counterparties entitled to see it, and retain it for the periods set out above.

Industry news on the market dashboard is shown as a headline, a short abstract and a link to the source. Full articles are neither copied nor stored.

12Liability and its limits

The platform is provided as it is. The operator does not warrant that a counterparty will perform, that goods will conform, that a document uploaded by a company is genuine, or that the market figures on the dashboard are exact. Those figures are indicative and delayed, and are not a quotation.

The operator answers for running the service with reasonable care and for the security of the data entrusted to it. It does not answer for the commercial outcome of a deal between two companies.

Open for legal drafting: the cap on the operator's liability and the exclusions around it. Nothing here will exclude liability that Israeli law does not allow to be excluded.

13Termination

A company may stop using the platform at any time. Closing an account does not erase the record of concluded deals, which is retained for the periods above.

The operator may suspend or close an account for breach of these terms, or where verification can no longer be maintained. Where a deal is in progress, both parties keep access to that deal until it is closed or cancelled.

14Changes to these terms

These terms will change as the service changes. A material change is announced in the platform and by email to company owners before it takes effect, and continuing to use the platform afterwards accepts the new version.

Open for legal drafting: the notice period for a material change, and what happens to a company that does not accept it.

15Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the law of the State of Israel.

Open for legal drafting: the competent forum, and whether it differs for a company registered outside Israel.

16Contact

Open: the operator's registered company details and the address for legal notices are published in this section before the platform opens commercially. Sigma Trade is a company registered in Israel.