The legal underpinning of iSHARE and its trust framework consists of a contract between all iSHARE participants and the iSHARE Scheme Owner (the so called Accession Agreement). Based on this one contract with the Scheme Owner, all participants are bound to the common iSHARE terms of use and can appeal to each other to abide by these rules (in legal terms this is called perfection (Dutch: derdenwerking)).
Two main documents make up iSHARE's legal provisions:
- The Accession Agreement
The main contract between the participant and the iSHARE Scheme Owner. This contract refers to the terms of use, including all iSHARE specifications, to which all participants must abide. After signing the Accession Agreement, a party becomes a participant of the iSHARE Scheme either as an Adhering Party or a Certified Party. There are two separate Accession Agreements: one for Adhering Parties and one for Certified Parties. - The Terms of Use
The Terms of Use further define the rights and obligations of every iSHARE Participant and the Scheme Owner. The Terms of Use apply to any party that has signed the Accession Agreement. The Terms of Use also state that participants fully abide by the iSHARE scheme specifications.
For the details of the Accession Agreements, the full version of the Terms of Use and the information available on legal context, please refer to the detailed Legal descriptions.
Licenses
Within iSHARE it is possible to explicitly provide instructions on how a service may be consumed or under which conditions data is exchanged. These instructions or conditions are called 'licenses'. Licenses are a crucial part of iSHARE, because they provide its participants the possibility to clearly state what is and what is not allowed. Since all iSHARE participants are bound to the same contract and underlying scheme rules, participants can appeal to each other to follow the provided licenses. Please refer to the iSHARE Terms of Use for a detailed legal explanation.