Terms of service

Meridian Recruitment is a recruitment and staffing business established in Estonia. These Terms of Service ("Terms") are issued by MeridianTechnologies OÜ, a private limited company registered in the Estonian Commercial Register under registry code 17576566, with its registered office at Tornimäe tn 5, Kesklinna linnaosa, 10145 Tallinn, Estonia ("Meridian", "we", "us", "our").

Full contact and corporate identification details are set out in section 38, and are provided in accordance with the Estonian Information Society Services Act (Infoühiskonna teenuse seadus) and applicable EU e-commerce requirements.

These Terms govern your access to and use of the Meridian website at https://meridian-recruitment.com and any subdomain of it (the "Website"), together with the online and recruitment-related services we make available through it — including job listings, applications, candidate profiles or accounts where offered, recruitment communications, and content published by us (together, the "Services").

They set the rules for using the Website and for the general recruitment relationship between Meridian and individuals and organisations who interact with us. They are not, and are not intended to be, the commercial contract under which we supply recruitment services to a client, employ or engage anyone, or place a contractor.

By accessing or browsing the Website you accept the provisions of these Terms that reasonably govern access and browsing — in particular sections 12 (Acceptable Use), 13 (Automated Access), 14 (Intellectual Property), 26 (Availability), 27 (Liability) and 36 to 37 (Governing Law and Disputes).

The remaining provisions — including those concerning applications, candidate services, user-submitted content, accounts and confidentiality — apply when you actively use the corresponding Service: when you submit an application or CV, create an account, join our talent network, enter a recruitment process, or otherwise engage with us.

We do not treat casual viewing of the Website as acceptance of obligations that have nothing to do with viewing it. Where a provision of these Terms would qualify as a standard term under Estonian law and would be unexpected in the circumstances, it does not become part of the contract, in accordance with § 37 of the Law of Obligations Act (Võlaõigusseadus, "LOA").

These Terms are available on the Website at all times in a form that can be read, saved and reproduced. We recommend that you save or print a copy when you begin using a Service.

These Terms are general terms for the Website and for our general dealings with users. They do not replace, and are subordinate to, any separate agreement we enter into with you or your organisation, including a Terms of Business, recruitment agreement, staffing or temporary agency agreement, statement of work, contractor agreement, employment agreement or other individually negotiated contract.

Where a separate agreement applies, that agreement governs the relevant commercial relationship and prevails over these Terms in the event of conflict. The full order of precedence is set out in section 35.

To use the Services you must have the legal capacity to do so under the law applicable to you, and — where you are acting for an organisation — the authority to act on its behalf. By using the Services on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you have that authority, and these Terms bind that organisation.

The Services are designed for working professionals. We do not set an arbitrary minimum age of 18, because Estonian and other applicable employment law permits younger people to work in defined circumstances.

You may use the Services if you are old enough to lawfully enter into the employment or engagement you are applying for, and old enough to conclude these Terms under the law applicable to you. Where you are a minor, the involvement, consent or authorisation of a parent or legal guardian may be required both to conclude these Terms and to enter into an employment relationship, and the additional protections that Estonian employment law provides for minors apply. Under the Estonian Personal Data Protection Act, a child's own consent in relation to information society services is valid from the age of 13.

We may decline to provide, or may discontinue, the Services to any person where we are legally required to do so, where a sanctions or legal restriction applies, or in the circumstances described in section 25.

Meridian provides recruitment and staffing services, which may include permanent recruitment and direct placement, executive search, technology and specialist recruitment, talent sourcing and headhunting, candidate screening and assessment support, candidate introductions to Employers, interview coordination, management of recruitment processes, maintenance of a talent network, temporary staffing and temporary agency work, staff augmentation, outstaffing and contractor placement, and recruitment consulting.

We focus principally on technology, engineering, product, data, digital and other specialist professional roles, but we may recruit in other sectors.

The scope of what we provide varies by assignment, by Client, by role and over time. Nothing on the Website obliges us to provide any particular service to any particular person, and the description of our services in these Terms is not a commitment to supply them.

Meridian acts as an intermediary between Candidates and Employers. We introduce, advise, coordinate and support. Except where we separately employ or engage you ourselves, we are not the Employer, we do not make the Employer's hiring decision, and we do not set the terms of the employment or engagement you may ultimately be offered.

Subject to these Terms, Candidates may apply for Vacancies, submit a CV, create and maintain a profile or Account where we make one available, join our talent network, be contacted by us about opportunities we consider relevant, take part in recruitment processes, and receive advice and market information from our consultants.

Our recruitment services to Candidates are provided free of charge, as set out in section 22.

We do not guarantee employment, an interview, an introduction to any Employer, an offer, any particular salary or rate, any particular timeline, or any other recruitment outcome. Being on our database, being represented by us, or being submitted for a role does not entitle you to be placed.

Final hiring decisions are made by the Employer, applying its own criteria and its own process. We do not control those decisions, and we cannot require an Employer to interview, offer or hire anyone. Where an Employer gives us feedback we may pass on what we are permitted to pass on, but we are not always given reasons and cannot always share them.

We decide, acting reasonably and in good faith, which Candidates to approach, to represent and to submit for a particular role. A decision not to put you forward for a specific Vacancy is not a judgement about you generally, and does not prevent us from considering you for other opportunities.

Information you give us about yourself — including your CV, employment history, qualifications, certifications, skills and experience, languages, work authorisation and right to work, availability and notice period, salary or rate expectations, and contact details — must be accurate to the best of your knowledge and must not be misleading.

Please tell us promptly if something material changes or if you notice a material error, for example a change in your availability, your right to work, or your interest in a process you are part of. You are not expected to notify us of trivial changes.

An honest mistake is not a breach of these Terms. What we ask is that you do not deliberately misstate your experience, qualifications, identity or eligibility to work.

Where information you provide is materially and knowingly false, we may end your participation in a recruitment process, decline to represent you, inform an affected Employer of the correction where we are lawfully able to do so, and apply section 25. You are not otherwise liable to us for inaccuracies in information about yourself, except as set out in section 28.

If you give us personal data about another person — most commonly a referee — please make sure they know, and that you are entitled to share it. Do not send us confidential material belonging to your current or former employer.

Job Listings are generally based on information provided by an Employer or Client. We present that information in good faith and take reasonable care in preparing it, but we do not independently verify every detail supplied to us, and we are not the author of the underlying role requirements.

A Job Listing is an invitation to express interest. It is not an offer of employment or engagement, and it does not create a contract between you and Meridian or between you and any Employer. Terms of employment become binding only when they are agreed in an employment, contractor or staffing agreement with the relevant party.

Vacancies may be amended, put on hold, refilled internally, withdrawn or closed at any time, and this often happens without notice to us. Requirements, seniority, location, working arrangements, start dates and hiring timelines may change during a process.

Salary, rate and benefits information in a Job Listing is indicative unless expressly stated to be fixed. Actual compensation depends on the Employer's assessment, your experience, negotiation, and the final agreement between you and the Employer.

Submitting an application does not oblige us to progress it, to submit you to the Employer, or to respond individually to every application, although we aim to respond to applicants who reach the stages of our process where we are in direct contact with them.

We do not knowingly publish misleading Job Listings. If you believe a Job Listing is inaccurate or misleading, please tell us at [email protected] and we will review it and correct or remove it where appropriate.

Where we believe a Vacancy may suit you, we will discuss it with you — normally including the identity of the Employer, the role, the working arrangements and the indicative compensation — before we put you forward.

We do not submit your identifiable details to a specific Employer without first telling you about the role and the Employer and obtaining your agreement, except where you have applied directly to a Job Listing for a named Employer, in which case your application is your instruction to submit you for that role.

This protects you from unwanted submissions that can affect your current employment or your position in processes you are already running yourself.

The information we share with an Employer, our legal basis for doing so, and the Employer's position as a separate data controller are described in our Privacy Policy. Once an Employer has received your information, it processes that information under its own responsibility and its own privacy notice.

Meridian does not own you, your career, your CV or your personal data, and nothing in these Terms suggests otherwise. Introduction and fee-protection arrangements between Meridian and a Client are commercial arrangements between those businesses; they are dealt with in our Terms of Business, they concern the payment of fees, and they do not restrict your freedom to apply where you wish, to work with other recruiters, or to approach any employer directly.

Using the Website or our recruitment services does not by itself create between you and Meridian an employment relationship, an agency relationship, a partnership, a joint venture, or any obligation on us to provide work or pay remuneration.

The position is different where Meridian separately enters into a written employment agreement, temporary agency work arrangement, staffing agreement, contractor agreement or similar contract with you. In that case that contract governs the relationship, including remuneration, working conditions, duration and termination, together with the mandatory provisions of applicable employment law.

Where you are placed with an Employer under a direct contract between you and that Employer, your employment relationship is with that Employer, not with Meridian.

Employers and Client representatives may use the Website to learn about our services, to contact us, to discuss hiring needs and, where we make such functionality available, to submit a vacancy or communicate with us online. These Terms apply to that use of the Website.

Recruitment, search and staffing services supplied to a Client are governed by Meridian's Terms of Business or by a signed recruitment agreement, staffing agreement, statement of work or other commercial contract. That contract governs matters including fees and fee structures, candidate introductions and introduction periods, replacement and rebate guarantees, conversion and transfer fees, payment terms and interest, temporary staffing and contractor supply, warranties, confidentiality, liability between the parties, and termination.

Nothing in these Terms creates an entitlement to recruitment services, sets or varies fees, or waives any right under a Terms of Business or commercial contract. In the event of conflict, the commercial contract prevails.

Where a Client supplies information for publication — role descriptions, company information, compensation ranges — the Client is responsible for its accuracy and for having the right to provide it. We rely on that information in good faith.

We may, now or in future, offer registered Accounts, candidate profiles or client portals. This section applies whenever we do, and does not imply that any such functionality currently exists.

Account information you provide must be accurate and kept reasonably up to date. You may not register an Account in someone else's name or impersonate another person, and you may not create an Account by automated means.

You are responsible for keeping your Account credentials confidential and for activity carried out through your Account by you or by anyone you allow to use it. Please choose a strong, unique password, enable any additional authentication we offer, and tell us promptly at [email protected] if you believe your Account has been accessed without authorisation.

You are not responsible for unauthorised use that occurs after you have notified us, or that results from a failure on our side.

We may suspend or close an Account in the circumstances described in section 25. You may close your Account at any time by telling us. Closing an Account does not by itself delete your personal data; deletion and your data-protection rights are dealt with in the Privacy Policy.

When using the Website or the Services, you must not:

• use them for any unlawful purpose, or in breach of applicable law;
• commit or attempt fraud, including submitting fraudulent applications or fabricated identities, qualifications or references;
• impersonate any person or organisation, or misrepresent your affiliation with one;
• submit applications on behalf of another person without their knowledge and authority;
• upload or transmit material that is unlawful, defamatory, discriminatory, harassing, obscene or infringing;
• upload or transmit malware, or any code intended to disrupt, damage or gain unauthorised access to any system;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Website, to any Account, or to any system or data connected with them;
• circumvent, disable or interfere with security features, access controls, rate limits or authentication;
• conduct penetration testing, vulnerability scanning or other security testing without our prior written authorisation;
• interfere with the proper operation of the Website, including by placing an unreasonable load on our infrastructure;
• use the Services to send spam or unsolicited commercial communications, or to harvest contact details for that purpose;
• harass, threaten or abuse our personnel, Candidates, Clients or other users;
• resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the Services or Content except as permitted in section 14;
• use the Services to post or promote a vacancy that does not genuinely exist, or that is intended to collect personal data under false pretences.

If you discover a security vulnerability in our Website or systems, please report it to [email protected] rather than exploiting or publicising it. We will not pursue action against anyone who investigates and reports a vulnerability in good faith, without accessing or altering other people's data, without degrading our services, and who gives us a reasonable opportunity to fix the issue before disclosure.

The restrictions in this section are aimed at misuse. Ordinary, good-faith use of the Website — reading pages, applying for roles, saving a Job Listing, sharing a link, or using accessibility or assistive technology — is permitted and encouraged, and nothing in this section restricts it.

Except as permitted in this section or with our prior written consent, you must not use crawlers, bots, scrapers, headless browsers or other automated means to access, index, copy, extract or monitor the Website or its Content, and you must not systematically extract or re-utilise substantial parts of our Job Listings, Content or databases, whether at once or by repeated extraction of insubstantial parts.

Legitimate search engines and job-aggregation crawlers may index the Website in accordance with the instructions published in our robots.txt file and any equivalent machine-readable instructions. Those instructions define what we permit, and we may change them.

We reserve our rights in our Content and databases in respect of text and data mining, and in respect of the use of our Content to develop or train artificial intelligence or machine-learning models or to build datasets, to the fullest extent permitted by law. This reservation is made expressly and, where applicable, by machine-readable means under Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790.

Accordingly, and except with our prior written consent, you must not use the Website or its Content to compile datasets or to train, fine-tune, evaluate or ground artificial intelligence or machine-learning systems.

Nothing in this section restricts or purports to restrict any use that you are entitled to make under a mandatory statutory exception or limitation that cannot be excluded by contract — including text and data mining for scientific research purposes by research organisations and cultural heritage institutions under Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2019/790, permitted acts in respect of a lawfully accessible database under the Estonian Copyright Act and Directive 96/9/EC, and exceptions for the benefit of persons with disabilities. Where a provision of this section would conflict with such a right, that right prevails.

Nothing in this section authorises, and nothing in it should be read as authorising, the collection or use of personal data from the Website contrary to data protection law. Our own processing of personal data is described in the Privacy Policy.

Meridian, or its licensors, owns the intellectual property rights in the Website and its Content, including the Meridian name and brand, logos, visual identity, website design and layout, text and editorial material, graphics, software and code, our compilations and databases, the presentation and arrangement of Job Listings, our recruitment materials and templates, and any original reports, market analysis or other publications we produce.

Where our database qualifies for protection, we assert the sui generis database right in it.

We claim no ownership of your CV, your professional history, your portfolio or other original materials you create — see section 15. We claim no ownership of personal data, which is not property and which is governed by the Privacy Policy and applicable data protection law. We claim no ownership of Employer or Client trademarks, brands, role descriptions or other material provided to us, which remain with their owners. We claim no ownership of third-party content appearing on or linked from the Website, which remains with its owner and may be subject to that owner's terms.

We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to access and view the Website, and to download, print and store Content for your own personal use or for the internal business purposes of your organisation in the ordinary course of considering or discussing our services or a Vacancy.

You may share a link to a Job Listing, and you may reproduce a Job Listing for the purpose of considering or discussing that opportunity. Beyond that, you may not copy, republish, distribute, modify, translate or create derivative works from our Content, remove any notice of ownership, or use our name, logo or brand without our written consent, except as permitted by law.

If you send us suggestions about our Services, we may use them without obligation or payment. This does not apply to anything you submit as part of a recruitment process or to any material covered by section 15.

You retain ownership of, and all intellectual property rights in, the material you submit to us — including your CV, cover letters, portfolio, code samples, written work, presentations, profile information and any other documents ("User Content"). Submitting User Content does not transfer any ownership to us.

You grant Meridian a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, host, back up, review, read, index, search, process, reformat, extract information from, translate where necessary, transmit and share your User Content, in each case only as reasonably necessary to provide the Services and to pursue the recruitment purposes you have engaged us for or agreed to.

This licence is limited in scope, is not perpetual, and ends when we no longer hold the relevant material in accordance with the retention criteria in our Privacy Policy or when you ask us to stop, subject to any legal obligation we have to retain records. Reformatting means presenting your material in our template or a Client's required format; it does not mean altering the substance of what you have told us.

We do not license, sell, publish or otherwise commercially exploit your User Content, and we do not use it to train artificial intelligence or machine-learning models for our own or a third party's benefit.

We share User Content with Employers only in accordance with section 8 and the Privacy Policy.

By submitting User Content you confirm that, so far as you are aware, it is yours to submit, that it does not infringe anyone else's rights, and that it does not contain confidential information belonging to a third party that you are not entitled to disclose.

We may decline to accept, or may remove, User Content that is unlawful, infringing or clearly unsuitable, and we will tell you if we do.

Our processing of personal data contained in User Content is governed by the Privacy Policy, and the licence in this section is not a legal basis for processing personal data under the GDPR.

In the course of a recruitment process you may receive information that is not public — for example the identity of an Employer conducting a confidential search, unpublished role or team information, salary and budget information, product or technical information, interview questions, assessment materials, or commercial information about Meridian or a Client.

You must treat such information as confidential, use it only for the purpose of the relevant recruitment process, and not disclose it to others, except to your professional advisers or people who need to know it to help you make a decision, and provided they keep it confidential. This obligation continues for two years after you receive the information, or for longer where a separate non-disclosure agreement applies.

This section does not apply to information that is or becomes public other than through your breach, that you already lawfully knew or received from someone entitled to disclose it, that you independently develop without using the confidential information, or that you are required to disclose by law, by a court or by a competent authority. It does not prevent you from discussing your own working conditions or pay where the law protects that right, from making a protected disclosure, or from exercising any right you have under data protection or employment law.

We treat information you give us in confidence with corresponding care, and our handling of your personal data is governed by the Privacy Policy.

The Website and our recruitment processes may link to or involve third-party services, including LinkedIn and other professional networks, Employer and Client websites and career pages, applicant tracking systems, video interviewing platforms, scheduling and calendar tools, assessment and testing providers, job boards and identity or right-to-work verification services.

Those services are operated by others under their own terms and privacy notices. We do not control their content, availability, security or practices, and linking to a service is not an endorsement of it. Please read the terms of any third-party service before using it.

We are not responsible for the acts, omissions, content or services of third parties outside our control. This does not limit our own responsibility for our choice of the providers we ourselves engage to process data or deliver our Services, for our own acts and omissions, or for any liability that cannot be excluded under section 27.

A recruitment process may involve screening calls and interviews, technical or skills assessments, written exercises or take-home tasks, structured competency interviews, work-style or psychometric questionnaires, and reference or credential checks. Some are run by us; many are run by the Employer or by an assessment provider.

Assessments are one input among several. They are indicative, they measure performance on a specific exercise at a specific moment, and they are not an absolute measure of your ability, potential or professional worth. We do not present them as such, and we encourage Employers to treat them the same way.

If you need an adjustment to take part in an assessment or interview on an equal footing, tell us and we will arrange what is reasonable with the Employer.

Assessment results are personal data. How we handle them, and the rules on background and criminal-record checks, are set out in the Privacy Policy.

We use software to run our business, and we may use tools — including tools that use machine learning or artificial intelligence — to help with candidate search and sourcing, CV parsing and structuring, skill extraction, matching profiles against role requirements, organising and searching our database, summarising documents, calls and interviews, drafting communications for a consultant to review, and general administration.

Decisions about whether to approach you, to represent you, to progress your candidacy or to submit you to an Employer are made by our consultants. Automated tools may surface, rank, structure or summarise information; a person evaluates it and decides. We do not make decisions producing legal effects concerning you, or similarly significantly affecting you, based solely on automated processing.

We may adopt new recruitment technology. If we ever introduce a system that would make such decisions solely by automated means, we will inform affected individuals in advance, explain the logic and consequences, and provide the safeguards required by Article 22 of the GDPR.

Employers may use their own assessment, screening or AI tools in their processes. Those are their systems and their responsibility.

Our use of technology to process personal data is described in the Privacy Policy, which prevails over this section on data protection matters.

We may contact you using the details you provide or that we lawfully obtain, by email, telephone, SMS, LinkedIn or other professional networks, messaging platforms, and video-conferencing tools.

Recruitment communications concern specific opportunities, our view of your market, or an approach about a role. Service communications concern a process you are part of, an Account you hold, or changes to these Terms, our Privacy Policy or our Services; these are operational and cannot generally be switched off while the underlying relationship continues. Marketing communications promote our services, publications or events.

You may ask us to stop any category of communication, or all of them. Use the unsubscribe link in any message, reply to the sender, or write to [email protected], and tell us what you want to stop. We will act on the request and record it so it is not lost.

Where we must send you a communication for legal reasons, or to complete something you have asked us to do, we may still do so.

We may record or take notes of calls and video interviews where we tell you in advance and where the law permits. You may decline, and we will use notes instead.

The legal bases for our communications, and your right to object, are set out in the Privacy Policy.

We process personal data in accordance with the GDPR, the Estonian Personal Data Protection Act and other applicable data protection law. Our Privacy Policy, available on the Website, explains what we collect, why, on what legal basis, who receives it, how long we keep it and what rights you have. Our use of cookies is described in our Cookie Policy.

Accepting these Terms is not consent to the processing of your personal data, and does not operate as a general or blanket permission for any processing. Where we rely on consent for a specific purpose, we ask for it separately, in a way that meets the GDPR's requirements, and you may withdraw it at any time.

In the event of any conflict between these Terms and the Privacy Policy on a data protection matter, the Privacy Policy prevails.

Meridian does not charge Candidates a fee for applying for a Vacancy, for being included in our talent network, for being represented or introduced to an Employer, for taking part in a recruitment process, or for being placed. Our fees are paid by Clients.

If we ever offer a distinct paid service to an individual — for example a training, coaching or advisory service that is not part of a recruitment process — it would be offered under a separate written agreement with its own terms and pricing, agreed before any charge arises. We will never charge you for a service you have not separately agreed to.

Where you are a consumer and you conclude a distance contract with us for a paid service, you have the statutory right to withdraw from it within 14 days, in accordance with the Law of Obligations Act. We will provide the required withdrawal information and form at the time. If you ask us to start performing the service during the withdrawal period and it is fully performed, the right to withdraw ends on completion; if you withdraw after performance has begun at your request, you pay a proportionate amount for what has been provided.

Fees payable by Clients are governed by the Terms of Business or the applicable commercial contract, not by these Terms.

We do not guarantee that you will be placed, offered a role or invited to interview; that any Vacancy will be filled, or filled through us; that any Candidate will prove suitable, accept an offer, start, or remain in a role; that any Employer will prove suitable, will perform its obligations, or will remain solvent; that any indicated salary, rate, benefit, start date or working arrangement will be achieved; or that information supplied to us by a Client, a Candidate or a third party is accurate or complete.

We commit to exercising reasonable professional skill and care in providing our Services, to acting honestly and in good faith, and to not knowingly giving you false or misleading information.

This section does not exclude or limit liability for intentional breach, for gross negligence where its exclusion is not permitted, for death or personal injury, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. It is subject to section 27.

We take reasonable care to keep the Website and our Job Listings accurate and current. Even so, role details change, third-party information can contain errors, and published material can become out of date. Content is provided for information and does not constitute professional, legal, tax or career advice on which you should rely without your own consideration.

Before making a decision that matters to you — resigning, relocating, declining another offer — verify the material terms directly through the recruitment process and, ultimately, in the written employment, staffing or contractor agreement offered to you. Only that agreement determines your terms and conditions.

If you find something inaccurate on the Website, please tell us at [email protected] and we will review it.

We may suspend, restrict or terminate your access to the Website, the Services or an Account, or remove User Content, where you materially breach these Terms; where you misuse our systems or attempt to; where there is reasonable evidence of fraud, impersonation or falsified information; where your conduct threatens the security, integrity or availability of our systems or the safety or rights of others; where your use is unlawful; or where we are required to act by law or by a competent authority.

We will act proportionately and will choose the least restrictive measure that addresses the problem. Except where the issue is urgent, where notice would frustrate the purpose of the measure, or where we are legally prevented from doing so, we will tell you what we are doing and why, and give you an opportunity to put things right or to respond.

If you believe a measure was wrong, contact [email protected]. We will review the decision, respond within a reasonable time, and reverse it if the review supports that.

You may stop using the Services at any time, ask us to close your Account, or ask us to stop contacting you. Your data protection rights are unaffected and are exercised as described in the Privacy Policy.

Termination does not affect rights or obligations accrued before it, does not affect any separate agreement between us, and does not affect the sections of these Terms that by their nature survive — including sections 14, 15.1, 16, 21, 27, 28 and 35 to 37.

We aim to keep the Website available and working properly, but we do not guarantee that it will be available without interruption or free of errors. Access may be affected by planned maintenance and updates, changes to features and infrastructure, security measures and incidents, technical failures, and outages affecting our hosting, connectivity or other third-party providers.

Where we plan work that we expect to cause significant disruption, we will give reasonable notice where it is practicable to do so.

This section does not exclude liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, and does not apply to any availability commitment given in a separate written agreement.

This section sets out how liability is allocated between us. It is drafted to comply with the Law of Obligations Act, including § 106, and it does not attempt to exclude liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for intentional breach of an obligation; for gross negligence, where exclusion or limitation would be contrary to law or to the principle of good faith; for death or personal injury caused by our act or omission; for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; for a breach of a mandatory consumer protection right; or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

The Website and our recruitment services to Candidates are provided without charge. For those Services, and subject to section 27.2, we are liable only for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, loss of an anticipated engagement or its terms, loss of data, or loss arising from the acts, omissions, decisions or solvency of an Employer, Client or other third party.

Where we supply services under a Terms of Business, staffing agreement, contractor agreement or other commercial contract, liability under that relationship is governed by that contract, and not by this section.

Subject to sections 27.2 and 27.4, our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with these Terms, the Website and the free Services is limited to EUR 5,000 or, where you have paid us a fee under a separate agreement for a service to which the claim relates, the amount of that fee, whichever is greater.

Nothing in this section limits your liability for damage you cause intentionally or through gross negligence, or for a breach of section 12 or 13. Otherwise, your liability to us is limited to damage caused by your intentional or grossly negligent conduct, in accordance with the general rules of the Law of Obligations Act.

Where any limitation in this section would, in the circumstances of a particular claim, be unreasonably harmful to you within the meaning of the rules on standard terms in the Law of Obligations Act, that limitation does not apply to that claim, and the remainder of this section continues to apply.

You will compensate us for direct loss, damage and reasonable legal costs we suffer as a direct result of your deliberate misuse of the Services in breach of section 12 or 13, or of a third-party claim that User Content you provided infringes that party's intellectual property or other rights, where you knew or ought reasonably to have known of the infringement.

This obligation does not apply to honest mistakes, to inaccuracies in information about yourself of the kind addressed in section 6.3, or to anything caused or contributed to by our own act or omission. It is limited to loss we actually suffer, is reduced to the extent we could reasonably have mitigated it, and does not extend to indirect or consequential loss.

We will notify you promptly of any claim we intend to rely on, will not settle it without consulting you, and will give you a reasonable opportunity to be involved in its handling. Where you are a consumer, this section applies only so far as permitted by mandatory consumer protection law and does not affect your statutory rights.

We may amend these Terms to reflect changes in our Services, our technology, our business or the law. The current version is always published on the Website with the date it took effect, and we keep previous versions on file.

Where a change is material, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention before it takes effect — for example by notice on the Website, by email to users we are in contact with, or by notice within an Account. Minor corrections and clarifications will simply be published.

Amended Terms apply to your use of the Services from the date they take effect. They do not apply retroactively, and they do not alter rights or obligations already accrued. If you do not accept a change, you may stop using the Services, and where a change materially affects a Service you are actively using, you may end your use of it without disadvantage.

Changes to these Terms do not amend any separate agreement between us. Those are amended only as that agreement provides.

Together with the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, these Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and Meridian in relation to the Website and the general use of our Services, and replace any previous general terms on that subject. This does not exclude liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, and does not affect any statement we have made that you have reasonably relied on.

Where documents conflict, the following order applies, with the highest first:

• an individually negotiated written agreement between you or your organisation and Meridian, including any employment agreement, contractor agreement, temporary agency work agreement or staffing agreement;
• a signed recruitment agreement, statement of work or order form;
• Meridian's Terms of Business;
• the Privacy Policy, in respect of personal data, and the Cookie Policy, in respect of cookies;
• these Terms.

Individually negotiated terms always take priority over these standard Terms in respect of the matters they cover. Where a document is silent on a matter, the next document in the order applies to it.

No provision of any of these documents overrides a mandatory rule of law, including mandatory rules of employment, consumer and data protection law.

If something goes wrong, please contact us at [email protected] and set out the issue. Most matters can be resolved directly and quickly. We will respond within a reasonable time and in any event within 30 days. This is a request, not a precondition: it does not prevent or delay you from bringing a claim or complaint at any time.

If you are a consumer, you may bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence, and you may be sued only in those courts, in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012. You may also refer a dispute to the Consumer Disputes Committee operating at the Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (Tarbijakaitse ja Tehnilise Järelevalve Amet), or to the alternative dispute resolution body designated in your own country. A list of notified dispute resolution bodies is maintained by the European Commission. The EU Online Dispute Resolution platform was discontinued on 20 July 2025 and is no longer available.

For disputes between Meridian and a User acting in the course of business or professional activity, the courts of Estonia have exclusive jurisdiction, with Harju County Court (Harju Maakohus) as the court of first instance, unless a separate agreement between the parties provides otherwise.

Complaints about the processing of personal data may be made to us, and to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon) or the supervisory authority in your country, as described in the Privacy Policy.

Nothing in this section prevents either party from applying to any competent court for interim or protective measures.