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Terms & Conditions

Last updated on: September 11, 2026

These terms govern any order placed with Volant Concept EVG SRL, trading as Microcut Studio ("we", "us"), for managed vinyl pressing services, and the Sourcing Service described in Section 1. By confirming an order, or by accepting a Sourcing Agreement, you ("the Client") accept these terms.

Several documents apply to a project: these Terms, the Sourcing Agreement, the Quote, the order confirmation, and the production terms of the plant handling the order. Where they conflict, the order of precedence is: the order confirmation; then the Quote; then the Sourcing Agreement; then these Terms. A plant's production terms govern what the plant alone controls — claim windows, manufacturing tolerances, quantity tolerance, storage and disposal — in the version disclosed to you and agreed before the order is placed, and only in that version. They define what the plant owes us. They do not define what we owe you: they do not override any commitment we have made to you directly, including an agreed quantity calculation under Section 7, the refund of our fees under Section 11, or our responsibility for our own errors under Section 15. An order confirmation changes something already agreed in the Quote only where it identifies the change expressly and you accept it in writing; sending a confirmation is not by itself a change.

Definitions

1. What we do

We work in two stages.

Sourcing Service. We confirm your production specification in writing, source the production options that fit it, compare the terms we receive against the same specification, and provide one consolidated production offer and our recommendation for one Release. This stage can be bought on its own, and it is complete when the offer and recommendation have been delivered, including where the result is that no viable production option is available.

Release management. If you proceed, we check your files against the chosen plant's technical requirements and send you back a list of anything that needs fixing, then place and manage the order through to test-pressing approval and delivery. This check is a check, not a correction: we tell you what the plant will object to, we do not re-master your audio or rebuild your artwork, and the files remain yours to fix or to have fixed by your mastering engineer or designer.

We do not own or operate a pressing plant ourselves; the plant is chosen per project based on your run size, format, and specification.

2. Quotes and price variation

  1. Our consolidated production offer states its own expiry date. It will not remain valid beyond the validity of the supplier quotations behind it, and in any case not longer than thirty days from the date we send it. If your offer expires, we may refresh the existing sourcing once without a new sourcing fee, provided you ask within fifteen calendar days of the expiry date and the Confirmed Specification has not materially changed. After that, or where material changes require a new sourcing round, a new sourcing fee applies.
  2. Supplier quotations underlying our offer may have their own validity periods. Our offer will never remain valid beyond the earliest applicable supplier quotation on which it depends.
  3. Quoted prices are ex-VAT for intra-EU B2B transactions under the reverse-charge mechanism, unless stated otherwise. Where you cannot provide a VAT number that validates in the VIES system, the VAT treatment changes: Romanian VAT applies to our fees at the rate then in force, and the treatment of the production cost depends on where the plant and the delivery address are. We confirm the position for your specific order before quoting, and the quote states the total you will pay. We may decline an order where the resulting tax position would require us to register for VAT in another country.
  4. Quantity is stated as a target, not an exact guarantee — see Section 7 (Quantity tolerance).
  5. Raw material and energy surcharges. EU pressing plants periodically add surcharges tied to PVC feedstock, energy, or fuel costs, and these can be introduced or revised on short notice — this is happening across the industry as of 2026 amid energy-market volatility. If such a surcharge is introduced by the plant after a quote is issued but before the payment required to confirm the order is made, we will pass it through transparently and reconfirm the total before the order is confirmed. If it's introduced after the Client has made a payment but before the full run is pressed, we will notify the Client promptly; the Client may accept the revised price in writing, or cancel the unperformed portion of the order, whether it has been prepaid or not. Silence is not acceptance, and we will not commit to the additional cost until the Client has accepted it in writing. Where the order is cancelled, the refund is calculated under Section 17, including the treatment of any amount already paid to the plant.

3. Payment, bank charges and currency

  1. Who you pay. The Client pays the full order amount — the plant's cost plus our fee — to us (Volant Concept EVG SRL). The Client has no direct payment relationship with the pressing plant; we remit the plant's portion to the plant ourselves, on the plant's own payment terms.
  2. Payment schedule. Whether payment is split into a deposit and a balance, or due in full upfront, depends on the specific plant handling the order — EU plants vary widely here, and some require 100% payment before any work begins. The applicable schedule for your order will be stated clearly in the order confirmation before you pay anything.
  3. Our fee. Our management fee is shown as a separate line in the Quote and is payable in full on confirmation of the order. It is not split into instalments and nothing further falls due later. The plant's own portion follows its own schedule, which may well be staged, and the two are independent of each other.
  4. Sourcing fee. Where you have paid a sourcing fee under a Sourcing Agreement for the same Release, that fee is credited in full against our management fee. Only one sourcing fee is credited against the management fee for a Release. The sourcing fee is part of the published management fee and not an additional charge. The two stages are invoiced separately, at the time each falls due. The sourcing fee you have already paid appears as a credit on the invoicing for the order. Where a second sourcing round is required and a further sourcing fee applies, only one such fee is credited; the other is a separate charge.
  5. When the fee is earned. Our management fee is earned in full on confirmation of the order. It is the price of taking the project on and carrying it from confirmation through to dispatch, and it does not reduce if the project is cancelled part-way: cancellation adds work rather than removing it. It is therefore non-refundable from confirmation onwards, in the same way whether you paid a deposit or the whole amount upfront, and whether or not the plant has yet done anything.
  6. Two exceptions. The fee is refunded in full where we decline the project under Section 11 for reasons that do not arise from your material or conduct. And nothing in this paragraph limits our responsibility for our own errors under Section 15, which is a separate matter from the fee. There are no other cases in which the management fee is refunded or reduced.
  7. What happens if you cancel. We retain the management fee in full, together with any costs we have reasonably and demonstrably incurred on your behalf, and refund the remainder of what you have paid us. Money already paid to a plant is accounted for under Section 17.
  8. What releases the full run. The plant is instructed to press the full run only once we hold your written approval of the test pressing (Section 4) and every amount due before full-run production under the payment schedule in the Quote has been received, including any part of the plant's cost falling due at that point. The two are independent: approval alone does not start the run while an amount is outstanding, and payment alone does not start it without your approval. If you reject the test pressing, the run does not proceed whatever the payment position; our management fee is unaffected, as it is payable and earned in full on confirmation, and the position on plant money is dealt with under Section 17 if the order is then cancelled.
  9. Freight. Freight is invoiced separately once the plant has priced it against your delivery address, and is due before dispatch. It is the only amount that falls due after the full run is pressed.
  10. Where plant costs usually begin. Cutting the lacquer or DMM master is normally the first point at which a plant incurs real costs on your specific project, and costs from that point on are the ones a plant is least likely to return. It is given here as the usual milestone, not as a rule of its own: what is and is not refunded on cancellation is determined in every case by the calculation in Section 17, and in the same way whether your payment was structured as a deposit or paid in full upfront.
  11. Payment method. Payment is accepted by bank transfer to the account stated on our invoice (Volant Concept EVG SRL's account) — never to the plant directly. An order is considered paid once cleared funds are received in our account, not on the date a payment is initiated. All payments must be made free and clear of any deductions; the Client is responsible for ensuring the full invoiced amount is received.
  12. Bank charges. Each party bears the charges of its own bank. Any intermediary or correspondent bank charges, and any charges arising from transferring funds onward to a manufacturing partner, supplier, or logistics provider as part of the Client's order, are borne by the Client unless expressly included in the quotation.
  13. Currency. Quotes are issued in EUR unless stated otherwise. Where payment is made in a different currency, any currency conversion cost is borne by the Client, and the amount credited toward the order is the EUR-equivalent actually received net of conversion costs.
  14. How your payment is used. We are a production-management service, not an escrow provider: payments received from the Client may be used by us to pay manufacturing partners, suppliers, logistics providers, and other third parties involved in fulfilling the Client's order, as and when needed to progress it.
  15. Late payment. If any payment is not made by the due date stated in the order confirmation, we may pause the order — including withholding the instruction to the plant to press or to dispatch — until cleared funds are received. Late-payment interest accrues from the due date at the statutory rate applicable to the transaction under Romanian law, together with any statutory compensation for recovery costs and any further reasonable recovery costs we are entitled to claim. Any storage or demurrage the plant charges while an order is held for non-payment is passed on to the Client at the plant's own rate, which is stated in the order confirmation; we will notify the Client in writing when such charges begin to accrue.
  16. If an amount is never paid. Where an invoice remains outstanding 30 days after its due date, we may cancel the unperformed part of the order. The management fee remains payable in full together with any costs we have reasonably and demonstrably incurred, the Client remains liable for any plant charges incurred up to that point, and money already paid to a plant is accounted for under Section 17 rather than by any separate rule here. Where a full run has already been pressed and is awaiting dispatch, the plant's own terms then govern what happens to the stock, including its storage charges and its right to dispose of uncollected goods after a period it sets. We will give written notice before exercising this and will not do so while a payment date has been agreed in writing and is being met.
  17. If a client requests changes after cutting has started (format, colour, quantity), any additional plant cost is passed through, and money already paid to the plant is accounted for under Section 17.

4. Test pressing sign-off

  1. Before the full run proceeds, the Client will receive a test pressing (TP) from the chosen plant.
  2. The Client must provide written approval (email is sufficient) before the full run is pressed. Silence or delay is not approval — the plant will not proceed to the full run without an explicit written go-ahead from us, based on the Client's confirmation. Approval is a judgement about the record and is separate from payment: we will never treat an outstanding invoice as a reason to press a test pressing you have not approved, and we will never ask you to approve one in order to release a payment.
  3. Once written approval is given, the test pressing you approved is what you are pressing at scale. We are not liable for a fault present in an approved test pressing but only reported after the full run is delivered, unless a hidden defect (Section 9) applies.
  4. Rejecting a test pressing. If a test pressing has a fault, the Client rejects it in writing, identifying the fault and the side and position at which it occurs. We put the rejection to the plant and a corrected test pressing is arranged where the plant accepts the fault.
  5. Who pays for a further round. This follows the cause, which is established between the plant, the Client and us before a further round is ordered. Where the plant accepts that the fault is its own, any remedy and its cost are the plant's, on the plant's terms. Where the fault originates in the supplied master or artwork, the further round is chargeable to the Client at the plant's price. Where the Client changes a decision already confirmed, the same applies. Where the fault originates in our own handling — the wrong files, the wrong version, or a specification passed on incorrectly — we bear the cost of the further round. The plant's price for an additional test-pressing round is stated in the order confirmation.
  6. Where a fault cannot be corrected, or the cause cannot be agreed. Either party may cancel the unperformed part of the order by notice in writing in any of these situations: two test-pressing rounds have been rejected for the same fault and the fault persists; the plant declines to accept a fault the Client has rejected the test pressing for, and declines to produce a corrected test pressing; or the cause of a rejected fault has not been agreed between the plant, the Client and us within 15 business days of the rejection. Neither party is obliged to order a further round in any of these cases. The financial position is then settled under Section 17: the management fee is retained under Section 3, plant money is dealt with according to where it is, and our own liability for our own errors under Section 15 is unaffected.

5. Delivery

  1. Orders are shipped directly from the pressing plant to the Client's specified delivery address ("drop-ship"). Our own registered address is never used as a delivery or routing point.
  2. The delivery date given at order confirmation is the plant's planned ship date plus a buffer of 1–2 weeks to account for normal production variance. This is an estimate, not a fixed delivery guarantee — vinyl pressing lead times are subject to the chosen plant's schedule.

6. Manufacturing tolerances

Vinyl pressing is a physical manufacturing process, not a digital one, and small variances are normal rather than defects. Unless the order confirmation states a tighter tolerance:

  1. Colour: hand-mixed or marbled/splatter colourways vary disc to disc by nature — this is the expected look of the product, not a fault.
  2. Weight: 140g and 180g are nominal figures, not guaranteed weights, and the finished record varies around them. Where a plant states a weight tolerance, it is given in the order confirmation.
  3. Centre labels and centring: three different things are often described in the same words. A label rotated by a few degrees, or sitting slightly off-centre on the disc face, is a normal press tolerance and a cosmetic matter, not a defect. A label pressed so far off position that it encroaches on the playing area is a defect. Separately from the label altogether, a record whose grooves are cut or pressed off-centre relative to the spindle hole produces audible pitch variation on playback — this is an off-centre pressing, not a label fault, and it is a valid defect claim under Section 9.
  4. Warp: slight warp that does not audibly affect playback is within normal tolerance; warp severe enough to cause audible pitch wobble or mistracking is a valid defect claim.
  5. Audio: minor surface noise consistent with the vinyl format itself is normal; audible non-fill, repeating clicks, or skips are valid defect claims — see Section 9 (Hidden defects).

7. Quantity tolerance

Vinyl pressing runs are usually not delivered as an exact count. This is normal production variance across the industry, not an error on our part or the plant's, and the plants we quote from differ widely: some hold a few per cent either way, and at least one commits in its order confirmation to shipping the exact quantity ordered.

Because they differ, the terms are set per order rather than here. The order confirmation states, before you commit to anything: the under-delivery and over-delivery the plant allows; whether the invoice follows the quantity ordered or the quantity actually delivered; how any difference is charged or refunded; and, where the release has more than one variant, whether the tolerance applies to each variant separately or to the run as a whole. The financial consequence of any quantity deviation is agreed in writing before the production order is placed. This is a condition of placing the order, not a matter to be resolved afterwards.

Where a plant has not stated its position in writing, we do one of two things and tell you which: we hold the order until the plant answers, or we agree a fixed rule with you — a price that stands for any delivered quantity within a stated tolerance band, or a stated rate at which under-delivery is refunded and over-delivery charged within that band — and we carry the difference between that rule and the plant's eventual invoice ourselves. A delivery outside the agreed band is not covered by either rule: a shortfall below it is treated as short delivery under Section 9, and a surplus above it is not chargeable to you unless you agree to it in writing after delivery. You will not be asked to confirm an order whose quantity terms are still undecided.

8. Client files and specifications

The Client is solely responsible for the accuracy of all audio masters, artwork, and metadata (track titles, catalogue numbers, dead-wax text, etc.) supplied to us. We check supplied files against the chosen plant's known technical requirements (e.g. file format, bleed, resolution) but do not proofread creative content, correct audio masters, or verify metadata for accuracy — that remains the Client's responsibility. Errors in Client-supplied content that are only discovered after the full run is pressed are not a manufacturing defect and are not covered under Section 9.

9. Receiving your order

  1. Who inspects. The run is dispatched from the plant directly to you and we never see it, so everything in this section depends on your own inspection of what arrives. Counting the delivery, playing copies and establishing how many are affected are yours to do; assessing the claim and putting it to the plant are ours.
  2. How the deadlines are expressed. Plants state their claim windows differently — in hours, in calendar days, or in working days — and they run from different starting points. The order confirmation reproduces each window as the plant states it: the unit, the event it runs from, and the public holidays that apply. We do not restate a plant's window in our own units, because converting it is how a deadline gets missed.
  3. Count on arrival. A shortfall in the delivered quantity carries the shortest window of anything in this section: at one plant in our roster the claim must reach the plant within 24 hours of delivery, and others are comparably tight. Count the delivery on the day it arrives. Client notification deadline: stated in the order confirmation. Plant claim deadline: stated in the order confirmation.
  4. Visible damage. The Client must inspect the shipment on arrival and report any visible transit damage. Across the plants we work with, the plant's own window runs from two working days to three days from delivery. Client notification deadline: stated in the order confirmation. Plant claim deadline: stated in the order confirmation.
  5. Hidden defects (faults not visible on inspection, e.g. non-fill or warp discovered only on play, and outside the tolerances in Section 6). This window varies far more than the others: across the plants we work with, the plant's own window runs from seven days to two months from delivery. Some plants also apply a minimum threshold, accepting a claim only where the affected copies exceed a stated share of the run, which is one per cent at one plant in our roster. These figures are set by the plant handling your order, not by us, and cannot be extended by us. Client notification deadline: stated in the order confirmation. Plant claim deadline: stated in the order confirmation. Minimum threshold, where the plant applies one: stated in the order confirmation.
  6. Report to us, and report early. The two deadlines above are not the same thing: we still have to assess what you send and file the claim with the plant inside the plant's own window, so your notification deadline is always the earlier of the two. Because the windows differ from a day to two months, it is set for each type of claim in the order confirmation rather than by a single rule here. A first message describing the problem is sufficient to meet your notification deadline to us; we then put a preliminary claim to the plant within the plant's window on the strength of that alone, and photographs, samples and the exact count follow afterwards. Where the plant's own window falls outside our working days, what we do is governed by Outside working days below, which takes precedence over this paragraph. Whether the plant accepts evidence supplied after its own deadline is the plant's rule, not ours, and where it matters for your order we will tell you what that rule is.
  7. Where to send it. Send your report to us. The contract with the plant is ours, so a message to the plant alone does not put a claim in — we do that. For the two shortest windows, a shortfall in the delivered count and visible transit damage, copy the plant address given in your order confirmation at the same time. That copy puts the date on record with the plant. It meets the plant's own deadline by itself only where that plant has confirmed to us in writing that it accepts notification from the delivery recipient, and where a plant has, the order confirmation says so.
  8. Outside working days. This paragraph governs everything in this Section that would otherwise fall outside our working days, and it applies to every type of claim. We do not investigate claims outside working days: assessing a claim, gathering evidence and dealing with the plant are done on the next working day.
  9. The one step we take at any time. Where a plant's deadline on your order would expire before our next working day — whatever the type of claim, and whatever the original length of the window, because what matters is the deadline actually falling on your order and not how long the window was to begin with — we forward your report to the plant by the earlier of two moments: 24 hours after we receive it, or that deadline. Where the deadline falls on a Saturday evening, the report goes before then, not 24 hours after your email. Your own notification deadline in the order confirmation is set to leave room for this step, and the order confirmation identifies any deadline on your order that is capable of expiring outside working days, so that you know before you confirm which ones they are.
  10. What we do not promise. Beyond forwarding the report as described above, we have no standing arrangement with any plant for claims raised outside working days, and none is promised here. Where a plant has confirmed to us in writing that it accepts notification from the delivery recipient, that is stated in the order confirmation and your own copy to the plant meets its deadline by itself.
  11. The Client must accept delivery within a reasonable time of the plant's shipment notice. Storage charges may apply for delayed collection, and after an extended period plants may destroy uncollected stock — timelines vary by plant and will be confirmed per order.

10. Intellectual property

The Client warrants that it owns, or has obtained all necessary rights and licences for, the audio, artwork, and any other material supplied to us for manufacture, and that manufacturing it does not infringe any third party's rights. This specifically includes mechanical rights — the right to reproduce and distribute a musical composition in physical form — which is a separate right from owning the master recording itself: if the Client did not write the underlying composition (e.g. a cover version, a sample, or a remix of someone else's work), a mechanical licence from the composition's rights holder or collecting society is required before pressing, and clearing it is the Client's responsibility, not ours. The Client indemnifies us against any claim, cost, or loss arising from a breach of this warranty. We and our plant partners will treat the Client's supplied material as the Client's own property throughout.

11. Right to refuse a project

We may decline or halt work on a project, at any stage, if we reasonably believe it involves: copyright or trademark infringement; counterfeit or bootleg products; content that is illegal in the jurisdiction of manufacture or delivery; hate speech or content promoting violence; or any party or transaction subject to applicable sanctions. Where we decline for reasons that do not arise from the Client's own material or conduct, our own fees are refunded in full: the whole of our management fee and the whole of any sourcing fee, subject only to the deduction of bank charges under Section 17. Money that has gone to a plant is a separate calculation and is dealt with under Section 17, on the same basis as any other cancellation: we pass on what we recover and we do not advance what we have not received. Where we decline because of the Client's material or conduct — an infringing release, a counterfeit, or a sanctioned counterparty — the position is settled under Section 17 in the same way as any other cancellation, with our management fee retained in full under Section 3.

12. Confidentiality

  1. Your material. We treat all supplied masters, artwork, and unreleased music as confidential, together with your release date, run size and commercial plans, and will not share or use any of it beyond what is needed to perform the Sourcing Service or fulfil the order. This applies whether or not an order follows, and it continues to apply if no order does.
  2. Our material. The following is our confidential information, provided to you for the purpose of evaluating and performing your order, or of evaluating a production offer issued under a Sourcing Agreement: quotations and cost estimates we issue; the identity of the plant selected for your order; that plant's pricing, lead times, tolerances and commercial terms; and any technical or commercial information about a plant that we disclose to you in the course of discussions, negotiations or performance.
  3. Your obligation. You shall keep the information above confidential and shall not disclose it to any third party, in whole or in part, without our prior written consent. This is not a matter of preference on our part: the plants we work with impose the same requirement on us, and disclosure by you would put us in breach of our own supply agreements.
  4. What you may always say. Nothing here prevents you from stating the country in which your record was manufactured, from meeting any labelling or product-information requirement that applies to you by law, from naming the plant where we have given written consent (which we will not unreasonably withhold once your order is complete), or from disclosing information to your professional advisers, who must be bound by equivalent obligations.
  5. Exceptions. These obligations do not apply to information that is or becomes public through no breach of these Terms, that you already held without a duty of confidence, or that you are required to disclose by law, by a court, or by a regulator, provided you notify us in advance where you are lawfully able to do so.
  6. Duration. These obligations take effect when the information is first disclosed and continue for three years after completion or cancellation of the order, or, where no order follows, three years after the Sourcing Service is completed or cancelled.
  7. Our own side. We do not disclose plant identities, their pricing, or their individual terms publicly, consistent with the confidentiality those plants require of us.

13. Portfolio and publicity

  1. What we may publish. From the later of delivery of your order and the public release date of the record, you grant us the right to name the release and the artist, to photograph the finished record and its packaging, and to describe the project in our own marketing, portfolio and case studies, including the format and specification. Run size, and any account of production problems encountered on your project, are published only with your written agreement: either may carry a commercial meaning we are not in a position to judge. Where the record has not been publicly released, we publish nothing about it without your written permission, whatever the delivery date. A release date that has passed does not permit publication if the release was postponed, cancelled, or was never intended for public distribution: what matters is that the record is actually out.
  2. What we will not publish. This right does not extend to your commercial terms. We will not publish what you paid, and we will not reproduce your artwork beyond a photograph of the physical record and its packaging.
  3. Timing and opt-out. You may ask us to hold any publication beyond that point, and we will. You may opt out entirely at any time by telling us in writing, and we will not treat that as a reason to decline future work. An opt-out given after we have published applies to everything within our control: we remove the material from our own site and channels within 10 business days and do not use it again. We cannot recall what third parties have already copied or reposted.

14. Force majeure

Neither party is liable for delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to: war, armed conflict, or terrorism; the declaration of martial law or a state of emergency by any government affecting us, the Client, a pressing plant, or a logistics provider involved in the order, and any restriction on movement, production, or export/import that results from it; sanctions, embargoes, or export/import bans imposed by any government or international body; civil unrest or strikes or labour disputes (at us, at the Client, or at any pressing plant or logistics provider involved); fire, flood, or other natural disaster; energy shortages, fuel-price shocks, or other supply-chain disruption affecting a plant's ability to produce or a carrier's ability to ship; pandemic or public-health restrictions; and any force majeure event affecting a pressing plant, raw-material supplier, or freight carrier that we have engaged on the Client's behalf. In such cases, timelines are extended by a period reasonable in the circumstances, and we will keep the Client informed as it is informed by the affected plant or supplier. If a force majeure event continues for more than 120 days, either party may cancel the undelivered part of the order, and the financial position is settled under Section 17.

15. Limitation of liability

We coordinate production and manage the order; we are not the manufacturer. We do not physically inspect the finished run: it is dispatched from the plant directly to you. What we do at the test-pressing stage is of two kinds. We check the production order and the plant's order confirmation against your confirmed specification, so that what the plant has been instructed to make — format, speed, side allocation, weight, colour, packaging, labels — is what you asked for. Separately, we check the test pressing itself against the things a test pressing actually shows: plants commonly press test pressings on black vinyl with plain or generic labels regardless of what the finished run will look like, so colour and final artwork are confirmed through proofs and written approvals rather than through the test pressing. We also coordinate your own listening and approval. The judgement about how the record sounds is yours: you are the one with the master and the reference, and approval under Section 4 is yours to give or withhold.

Manufacturing defects are the plant's responsibility. Because the contract with the plant is ours and not yours, we raise and pursue any valid manufacturing claim with the plant on your behalf, within the plant's deadlines, and we keep you informed while it is running. What you receive is the remedy the plant provides — replacement copies, a repress, or a credit — passed on to you in full, less only bank or payment charges actually incurred on the transfer. Where the plant refunds money to us, we pass on what we actually recover from them. Where the plant declines to provide a remedy, we do not fund a replacement, repress or refund from our own resources.

This does not limit our responsibility for our own errors, which is separate from the plant's: sending a plant the wrong files or the wrong version of them, releasing a run without your written approval of the test pressing, missing a claim deadline that was within our control, or departing from instructions you have given us in writing.

Our total aggregate liability arising from an order, however caused, shall never exceed the total amount paid by the Client for that order. Where we provide a Sourcing Service and no order follows, our total aggregate liability arising from that service shall never exceed the sourcing fee paid. This limitation does not apply to liability that cannot be limited or excluded under mandatory law (e.g. liability for death, personal injury, or fraud).

16. Complaints procedure

Any complaint about an order, or about a Sourcing Service whether or not an order followed it, should be sent in writing to [email protected] — this is the single point of contact for complaints; there is no separate address for different stages. Include the order reference, or where no order exists the sourcing reference and the release it related to, together with a description of the issue. We (Volant Concept EVG SRL) will handle it in two stages: an acknowledgement that we've received it within 2 business days, then a substantive response within 10 business days, which may take longer where the plant needs to investigate a manufacturing claim.

17. Cancellations and refunds

Cancellation of a Sourcing Service by the Client. The sourcing fee becomes non-refundable when we send your Confirmed Specification to production partners. If you cancel before that point, we refund the fee less any reasonable and documented cost of work already carried out. A completed sourcing that finds no viable production option, or pricing above a budget you have described, is a delivered result and the fee is not refundable.

The fee becoming non-refundable does not complete the service. Sending the specification to plants is the point at which you can no longer cancel for a refund; it is not the point at which our work ends. We remain obliged to compare the responses received against the same specification and to deliver the consolidated offer and recommendation, or a written statement that no viable option was found. Until we have done one of those, the Sourcing Service is not performed.

If we stop. Where we do not deliver that result — because we decline the project, because we cease work, or for any reason on our side — we refund the sourcing fee in full, whether or not the specification has already gone to plants. This applies equally where we determine before contacting any plant that we cannot source your project.

Cancellation of a production order. Because each order is a bespoke manufacturing run tied to the Client's specific audio and artwork, cancellation after any payment is made is settled on the basis set out below, and in the same way regardless of whether the Client's payment was structured as a deposit or paid in full upfront. Whether the plant has begun work makes no difference to how the calculation is carried out. What determines the outcome is where the money actually is at the point of cancellation: with us, with the plant and confirmed as not returning, with the plant and subject to an open claim, or already recovered from the plant.

Where the plant itself refunds part of what it was paid (e.g. it returns €1,800 of a €2,000 payment, keeping €200 for preparatory work already done), the Client receives the amount we actually recover from the plant, less any separate amounts owed to us under these Terms, and subject to the rule on bank charges below. What the plant has already kept is not deducted a second time. Any approved refund is made to the original payment method where reasonably possible. Bank charges on refunds. From any refund under these Terms, including a refund of our fees under Section 11, we deduct only the bank charges and payment-processing fees actually incurred in making that transfer, evidenced on request. Each charge is deducted once: where several amounts are returned to you in a single transfer, the charge on that transfer is deducted once from the total and not separately from each part.

When refunds are paid. Within 10 business days of a cancellation taking effect we send you a written calculation: what we hold, what has been paid to the plant and what we have asked the plant to return, what we have retained under Section 3, and the resulting amount. The undisputed part of that amount is paid within a further 5 business days, whether or not you dispute the remainder and whether or not the plant has answered us. Money we recover from a plant afterwards is passed on within 5 business days of us receiving it. A plant's silence or refusal delays neither the calculation nor the part that is with us.

What a refund is made up of. Three amounts are distinguished and each is treated separately. First, the balance of what you have paid us that remains with us after the amounts below have been accounted for, which is refundable in full. Each amount is counted once: money retained as earned fee is not also counted as money held, and money paid to a plant is not also counted as a cost incurred by us. Second, money that has gone to a plant, which the calculation splits into three and states separately: amounts the plant has confirmed it will not return, which are not refundable; amounts we have asked the plant to return and which are still open, which are passed on to you when and if we receive them; and amounts already received back from the plant, which are paid to you under the paragraph above. We do not advance you money a plant has not yet returned, and we do not describe money as unrecoverable while a claim for it is still open. Where a plant later returns money that the original calculation treated as not refundable, whether because the plant had refused it or because it was recorded as already spent, that money is passed on to you in the same way and within the same 5 business days of our receiving it: the original classification does not become final by having been written down. Third, our management fee, which is retained in full under Section 3 whenever the order has been confirmed — except where we have declined the project under Section 11 for reasons not arising from your material or conduct, in which case our fees are refunded in full under that Section and nothing is retained under this paragraph. No amount is counted twice, and a plant's refusal to refund does not change the treatment of our management fee under Section 3, including the exception under Section 11, and does not affect our own liability for our own errors under Section 15.

18. Governing law

These terms govern all services provided by Volant Concept EVG SRL, including the Sourcing Service and any subsequent release management engagement, whether or not an order is subsequently placed with a Plant. They, and any order placed under them, are governed by Romanian law. Disputes are subject to the jurisdiction described in our Legal Notice.