General Terms & Conditions

General Terms of Business of the sole proprietorship Walnut Careers e.K., headquartered at Sternstraße 49, 40479 Düsseldorf, Germany, referred to as “Walnut” throughout these Terms.  

Updated: 15 June 2018 

1.1 Contract basis

Walnut is a human resources service provider dedicated to recruiting talents for its Customers. This activity aims at producing work relationships between employees and Walnut’s Customers. The activity is limited to recruitment alone and does not include the conclusion of contracts on Customer’s behalf.

1.2 Contract parties

The Service Agreement is concluded between Walnut and Customer.

1.3 Type and scope of service

The object of the Service Agreement is recruitment, assessment and preselection of talents according to Customer’s requirements profile.

2.1 Order placement 

Customer places a recruitment order in writing, by electronic communication, or by telephone. The Service Agreement must be confirmed in writing to take effect. 

2.2 Cancellation

Customer may cancel a placed order at any time. Cancellation is free of charge, unless Walnut has incurred recruitment costs in terms of working time, travel fees, per diem expenses, advertisements etc. Actually incurred costs are charged transparently. Walnut also reserves the right to cancel the order.

3.1 Contract fulfillment 

The recruitment order is deemed fulfilled, if a temporary or open-ended employment contract is closed between a talent and Customer. The time at which the employment contract begins is irrelevant for the fulfillment of the Service Agreement. The commission is also due, if the employment contract is closed up to eighteen months after the talent’s introduction, or if the talent’s employment contract is terminated during the trial period, and the talent is then rehired at a later time.

3.2 Guarantee period 

The guarantee period for the recruitment contract is 3 months for full-year or open-ended contracts, and 14 days for limited seasonal contracts. The guarantee period is not tied to the trial period under labor law or any other laws. The guarantee period begins on the starting date defined in the employment contract. 

3.3 Recruitment guarantee

Should a recruited talent terminate his/her employment within the guarantee period, Walnut guarantees to refill the vacancy free of charge once. This only applies, if the due recruitment commission has been paid in full. If the talent’s termination resulted from legal violations by Customer or any of Customer’s employees, the claim for refilling the vacancy expires without affecting Walnut’s fee claims. Should Walnut be verifiably unable to recruit an adequate substitute talent, Customer will receive a refund of 70% of the agreed contract value.

4.1 Recruitment fee claims

As soon as the contract is fulfilled, Walnut has a claim to the recruitment fee. If the employment contract is closed under conditions different from the ones offered, or if the recruited talent is employed in a position different from the requirements profile, this will not affect Walnut’s recruitment fee claims.

4.2 Due dates and payment terms

If an employment contract is concluded with the talent recruited by Walnut, Customer shall inform Walnut within one week after conclusion. Walnut will issue the invoice immediately after conclusion of the employment contract. All fees and commissions are stated net plus value-added tax and are due strictly net as soon as the invoice is issued.

5. Exclusion of liability

The information Walnut provides about a talent is based on statements by the talent or by third parties. Therefore, Walnut cannot guarantee the correctness and completeness of the stated information, or the professional, physical, or mental suitability of the talent. Walnut is not liable for any damages caused by a talent performing his/her work. Any direct or indirect claims by Customer are excluded. Furthermore, Walnut cannot guarantee that a proposed talent is not placed elsewhere or chooses a different employer.

6. Data protection

Customer is required to treat all information received under this contract confidentially and, in particular, not to share this information with any third parties. If Customer’s violation of this requirement leads to a third party closing a contract with the talent proposed by Walnut, Customer shall owe the commission in the same way, as if Customer had closed the contract. Customer must return to Walnut any documents, digital or hardcopy, of rejected or refused talents. 

7. Final provisions

These General Terms of Business govern the binding cooperation between Walnut and Customer. Any additional agreements must be set down in writing. If one or more provisions of these Terms of Business are invalid by law, the remaining terms will remain in effect. The invalid provision shall be replaced by a valid provision which best satisfies the purpose of the invalid provision. This present version of these Terms of Business is superseded by any later versions. All contracts are subject to German law. The place of jurisdiction and place of fulfillment for both parties is Walnut’s registered place of business.