Terms of Engagement
Apollo Accreditation
1. Who you are contracting with
Apollo Accreditation is a trading name of Auren Institute, established in Malta at 92, No. 1, St Edward Street, Qormi QRM 2136, Malta. Our registration number is P1421 and our VAT number is MT20967027.
Any contract for our services is with Auren Institute trading as Apollo Accreditation. These terms apply to every engagement unless we agree something different with you in writing.
2. What we provide
We provide four things: curriculum and programme development, preparation and management of accreditation submissions, quality assurance design and review, and qualification framework mapping.
We are a consultancy. We are not a regulator, an awarding organisation or an accreditation body. We do not award qualifications and we do not grant accreditation. Our role is to design your programme to the standard a body requires, prepare the submission, and manage it through to a decision.
3. What we do not promise
We do not guarantee that any regulator, awarding organisation or accreditation body will approve your submission. That decision belongs to the body, applying its own criteria at the time it decides.
What we do commit to is that the work we produce will meet the published criteria of the body in question as those criteria stand when we prepare it, and that we will tell you honestly if we think an application is unlikely to succeed before you spend money on it.
4. Scope, fees and changes
Every engagement starts with a written scope setting out the deliverables, the body or bodies in scope, the timeline and the fee. Fees are quoted in euro unless agreed otherwise and are exclusive of VAT where VAT applies.
If the scope changes, because a body revises its criteria, because your programme changes, or because you ask for more, we will price the change in writing before doing the work. We do not bill for scope you have not agreed.
5. What we need from you
Accreditation work depends on your material. We need accurate information about your organisation, your existing programmes, your staff and your assessment arrangements, provided in reasonable time.
Where we are told something that is inaccurate, or where material is withheld, we cannot be responsible for the consequences for your submission.
6. Timelines
We give indicative timelines for our own work and we keep to them. We cannot control how long a regulator, awarding organisation or accreditation body takes to reach a decision, and we do not offer timelines on their behalf.
7. Intellectual property
You own the curriculum, assessment material and documentation we produce for you once our fees for that work are paid.
We retain ownership of our own methods, templates, checklists and frameworks. Where those are embedded in a deliverable, you get a perpetual licence to use them for your own programmes. You may not resell them as a standalone product.
8. Confidentiality
We treat everything you give us as confidential and we do not disclose it except to the body a submission is being made to, to our own staff and subcontractors who need it, or where the law requires it.
We expect the same treatment of our own material, including pricing, methods and templates.
9. Conflicts of interest
We work with providers who compete with one another. Before we accept an engagement we check for conflicts, and where one exists we tell you before we start and agree how it will be managed.
One conflict is structural and we state it here rather than leaving it to be discovered. Apollo Accreditation is a trading name of Auren Institute, which also operates as a compliance training provider in the United Kingdom and Malta. We may therefore advise a client whose programmes compete with Auren Institute's own. Our conflicts of interest policy sets out how this and every other conflict is managed, including team separation and the circumstances in which we will decline.
10. Data protection
Each party is a controller for the personal data it holds in its own right. Where we process personal data on your instructions, we do so as a processor under a written agreement.
How we handle personal data is set out in our privacy notice.
11. Payment
Invoices are payable within 30 days of the invoice date unless the scope says otherwise. We may suspend work on an engagement where an invoice is more than 30 days overdue, having given you written notice first.
12. Ending an engagement
Either party may end an engagement on 30 days written notice. If you end it, you pay for work completed and for work committed that we cannot reasonably cancel. If we end it, you pay only for work completed.
Either party may end an engagement immediately where the other is in material breach and has not put it right within 14 days of being told.
13. Liability
Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.
Subject to that, our total liability for any engagement is limited to the fees paid to us under that engagement. We are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, or for a body declining a submission.
14. Complaints
If you are unhappy with our work, tell us. Our complaints and appeals policy sets out how we handle it, who reviews it and how long it takes. Raising a complaint costs you nothing and does not affect the engagement.
15. Changes to these terms
We may revise these terms. The version that applies to your engagement is the version in force when the scope was signed. Changes never apply retrospectively to work already agreed.
16. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of Malta. The courts of Malta have exclusive jurisdiction, save that either party may seek injunctive relief in any competent court.
Common questions
Does Apollo Accreditation guarantee my submission will be approved?
No. That decision belongs to the regulator, awarding organisation or accreditation body, applying its own criteria at the time it decides. What we commit to is that the work meets the published criteria as they stand when we prepare it, and that we tell you honestly before you spend money if we think an application is unlikely to succeed.
Who owns the curriculum Apollo builds?
You do, once our fees for that work are paid. We retain ownership of our own methods, templates and frameworks, and you get a perpetual licence to use them for your own programmes.
What law governs an engagement with Apollo Accreditation?
The laws of Malta. Apollo Accreditation is a trading name of Auren Institute, established in Malta.
How do I end an engagement?
Either party may end an engagement on 30 days written notice. If you end it, you pay for work completed and for committed work we cannot reasonably cancel.