Terms of engagement.

The perimeter

UIE Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales with number 17334450, acts as arranger only. UIE never holds client money, never takes title to an asset, and never holds document keys. Payment runs between the parties and their banks; title moves between the parties; documents are encrypted to the parties entitled to read them.

UIE is not a bank, a broker-dealer, a payment institution, an investment firm or a custodian, and nothing on this site is an offer to act as one. The same gate that runs a transaction refuses the operator’s own key for signing, for issuing or amending a letter of credit, for changing a payee bank, for moving title and for releasing cargo, and each refusal is written where the parties can read it.

What we are engaged to do

Under a written mandate, UIE arranges and documents a transaction end to end: taking the instruction, screening the counterparties and, where relevant, the vessel or aircraft, preparing and comparing the documents, booking independent inspection or survey, holding the schedule, and delivering an evidence pack that both sides keep.

UIE does not give legal, tax, accounting or investment advice, does not value assets, and does not guarantee that a transaction will complete. Inspection, assay, survey and registry findings are the findings of the independent party that made them.

Your authority, and ours

A mandate is issued by a person with authority in your firm, names what the desk may do, sets its limits and its expiry, and can be narrowed or withdrawn at any moment. Withdrawal takes effect in the same request cycle. The desk cannot widen a mandate, and no instruction found inside a document or a message can enlarge one.

Membership and the desk retainer

Membership is extended by the desk after an introduction; it is never sold to the public. A member pays a monthly desk retainer for access to the desk at any hour, a named lead and deputy, and the published service standard.

The retainer is UIE’s own fee for attendance. It is not a deposit, it is never applied to the price of any cargo or asset, and it does not change the perimeter above: UIE still never holds client money. It is invoiced by UIE Ltd and settled by bank transfer; where card payment is offered it is taken by our payment processor, Stripe, and UIE never sees or stores a card number.

The retainer renews monthly until cancelled. You may cancel at any time from your account or by writing to the desk; cancellation takes effect at the end of the month already paid, and no further charge is taken. Service credits under the client care standard are set against the next retainer invoice.

Arranger fees

The arranger fee for a transaction is stated in the mandate before work begins, on the published schedule: basis points of transaction value, tapered by size, with a minimum and a cap set per asset class. It is payable on delivery of the evidence pack, whether or not the parties go on to close, by the mandating party, and disclosed in writing to both sides. Thirty per cent is taken on mandate and credited against it; where a transaction is abandoned after screening and searches have been run, fifty per cent is payable and no more.

Third-party costs, including inspection, survey, assay, escrow agent, registry and lien searches, permits and insured transport, are charged at cost and disclosed. Where UIE also fixes the vessel, the 1.25 per cent chartering commission is taken instead of the cargo fee, never in addition to it. UIE is never paid by both sides of the same transaction and is never paid out of the price.

Service commitments

The published client care standard forms part of these terms, including the service credit UIE applies to itself when it misses a target it has published.

Export controls and sanctions

You remain responsible for the lawfulness of what you are moving. UIE screens counterparties and vessels continuously while a transaction is open, and raises any export licence, dual-use or CITES requirement the asset class carries on the day the class is chosen. Where such a control applies and the permit is not on file, UIE will refuse the shipment or the transfer of title.

Liability

UIE does not exclude liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded. Subject to that, UIE’s liability arising out of an engagement is limited to the fees paid for that engagement, and UIE is not liable for loss of profit, loss of bargain or other indirect loss.

Confidentiality

UIE treats a transaction and everyone in it as confidential. Engagements are by introduction, and UIE will not name you as a client without your written agreement.

Governing law

These terms and any engagement are governed by the law of England and Wales. A dispute the parties cannot settle is referred to arbitration in London. A specific contract may name a different forum, in which case that contract governs.