Terms of Use

01Acceptance of These Terms

By accessing, browsing, or using an APMA website or digital service, you acknowledge that you have read and understood these Terms and agree to comply with the provisions that lawfully apply to your use. If you do not agree, you should not use the relevant service.

If you use an APMA service on behalf of an institution, employer, organization, committee, or other legal person, you confirm that you have authority to act for that entity. In that situation, “you” includes both you and the entity, but only to the extent permitted by applicable law and the authority actually granted to you.

Merely viewing publicly available information does not, by itself, create a membership, advisory, employment, agency, fiduciary, clinical, accreditation, partnership, or other professional relationship with APMA.

02Eligibility, Capacity, and Use by Minors

You may use the website only if you have legal capacity to do so or are using it with the involvement and authorization of a parent, guardian, or other person legally responsible for you. Professional membership, fellowship, committee participation, institutional applications, and paid services may have separate age, qualification, authority, identity, and eligibility requirements.

APMA's general services are not directed to young children. Educational pages may be read by a broad audience, but children should not submit personal information, create an account, make a payment, or apply for an APMA status without appropriate adult and legal authorization. A parent or guardian remains responsible for supervising a minor's use where required by law.

You must not use a service if applicable sanctions, export controls, court orders, professional restrictions, or other binding legal requirements prohibit that use. APMA may request reasonable evidence of identity, age, authority, qualifications, or eligibility where relevant to a service.

03Definitions and Reading These Terms

In these Terms, the following expressions have the meanings below unless the context requires otherwise:

APMA

The Asia-Pacific Medical Association and the APMA entity responsible for the relevant website, service, communication, or activity.

APMA Service

An APMA website, page, platform, portal, publication, email facility, database, registration process, online event, digital tool, or other electronic service.

Content

Text, data, graphics, photographs, audio, video, documents, code, compilations, educational materials, and other information made available through a service.

User Submission

Information, documents, messages, media, feedback, or other material that a user sends, uploads, posts, or otherwise provides to APMA.

Applicable Law

Any law, regulation, binding code, court order, professional rule, or mandatory legal requirement that applies to the relevant person, conduct, service, or transaction.

Headings, summaries, navigation labels, examples, and “at a glance” notices improve readability but do not replace the full provisions. “Including” means “including without limitation.” A reference to writing includes email and other durable electronic communication where legally valid.

04Services Covered

These Terms apply to APMA-controlled public websites and digital services that display, link to, or otherwise incorporate them. They cover ordinary browsing; use of educational, scientific, policy, preventive-health, clinical-topic, membership, committee, event, contact, and institutional materials; and interaction with any feature made available under these Terms.

They do not automatically govern a separate website, platform, publication, or service operated independently by a third party, even if APMA links to it or collaborates with its operator. They also do not replace a signed membership agreement, employment contract, grant agreement, speaker agreement, licence, event registration agreement, sponsorship agreement, data-processing agreement, or other individually agreed document.

05Related Policies and Order of Priority

Your use may also be governed by APMA's Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Copyright Policy, Accessibility Statement, membership criteria, application declarations, event rules, payment terms, or other notices presented for a particular service.

If documents conflict, the more specific valid term ordinarily governs the specific activity, followed by these Terms and then general informational notices. A negotiated and signed agreement takes priority over standard website terms concerning the same subject. Privacy notices govern how personal information is handled; they do not by themselves create a waiver of these Terms.

06Changes to These Terms and Services

APMA may update these Terms to reflect changes in law, services, technology, security, institutional practice, or risk. The current version will identify its effective date. Changes will apply prospectively from the stated date unless immediate application is reasonably necessary for legal compliance, security, fraud prevention, or protection of users.

Where applicable law requires advance notice, express consent, or an opportunity to cancel a paid or continuing service, APMA will seek to provide that protection. APMA will not rely solely on a general right to amend these Terms to impose a material retroactive disadvantage where doing so would be unlawful or unfair.

APMA may add, modify, suspend, or discontinue a website feature. For paid services, memberships, or registrations, any refund, notice, or continuation rights will be determined by the specific service terms and mandatory law.

07General Educational and Institutional Purpose

APMA content is provided for general medical education, scientific communication, professional awareness, public-health literacy, institutional information, and responsible discussion. It is not designed to address every fact, risk, contraindication, uncertainty, local rule, or individual circumstance.

Content may be intended for different audiences, including members of the public, healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, trainees, institutions, media, and policy stakeholders. The presence of professional terminology does not convert general content into individualized professional advice. Users are responsible for considering whether a resource is appropriate for their purpose and level of expertise.

08No Medical Advice, Diagnosis, or Treatment

APMA does not establish a clinician-patient relationship through its website. Content must not be used as a substitute for examination, diagnosis, risk assessment, treatment, prescribing, monitoring, counselling, or other individualized care by an appropriately qualified professional.

Do not use APMA content to start, stop, increase, reduce, or change a medicine or treatment; select or avoid a test, vaccine, procedure, supplement, device, or health product; interpret an individual result; determine fitness for work, travel, sport, or a procedure; or delay seeking professional help. General references to symptoms, risk factors, treatments, prevention, or clinical practice are not instructions for a particular person.

09Emergencies and Urgent Situations

APMA websites, email addresses, forms, and social channels are not monitored or designed for emergencies, crisis intervention, poison advice, safeguarding reports, urgent clinical triage, or time-sensitive treatment decisions. Messages may not be read immediately and APMA cannot dispatch emergency assistance.

If you believe that you or another person may be facing a medical emergency, severe deterioration, immediate danger, poisoning, a serious adverse reaction, or an imminent risk of self-harm or harm to others, contact the emergency services, crisis service, poison centre, or other urgent local service available where the person is located. Do not wait for a response from APMA.

10No Licensure, Accreditation, Certification, or Endorsement

Unless APMA expressly states otherwise in a separately authorized written document, APMA content, membership, fellowship, committee activity, institutional participation, event attendance, publication, listing, link, citation, or acknowledgement does not constitute or replace:

• medical or other professional licensure, registration, board certification, credentialing, revalidation, continuing-professional-development approval, or authorization to practise;
• institutional, programme, hospital, laboratory, educational, or service accreditation, inspection, ranking, approval, or quality certification;
• governmental, regulatory, payer, employer, university, ethics-committee, or professional-body approval;
• clinical guidance, a standard of care, a legal opinion, a regulatory decision, or a requirement binding on a professional or institution; or
• APMA endorsement of a person, product, medicine, device, service, institution, publication, method, or commercial claim.

Users must represent their relationship with APMA accurately and must not claim authority to speak or act for APMA without express written authorization.

11Responsibilities of Professional Users

Healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, institutions, and policy users remain independently responsible for exercising professional judgment, verifying sources, considering current evidence, following local law and professional standards, obtaining appropriate consent, protecting confidentiality, and working within their competence and authorized scope.

APMA content should be critically assessed alongside original sources, current local guidance, product information, clinical findings, and patient-specific factors. Use of APMA content does not transfer a professional user's duty of care, legal responsibility, or institutional obligations to APMA.

12Accuracy, Completeness, and Scientific Change

APMA seeks to publish responsible and useful information, but medicine, science, public health, law, policy, and professional practice evolve. Content may become incomplete, outdated, superseded, or inconsistent with later evidence. Publication and review dates do not guarantee that every statement reflects the most recent development.

APMA does not promise that all content is error-free, comprehensive, continuously reviewed, or suitable for a particular purpose. Summaries necessarily omit detail. References to research do not imply that findings are final, universally accepted, or applicable to every population. Users should check cited sources, corrections, current guidance, and relevant official information before relying on content for a material decision.

If APMA identifies a significant error, it may correct, clarify, withdraw, archive, or replace content. Historical material may remain available for transparency and should be read in its original context.

13Regional and Legal Differences

APMA serves an international audience. Laws, professional titles, emergency numbers, medicines, product approvals, clinical pathways, public-health recommendations, service availability, cultural practices, and regulatory standards differ across countries and may change over time.

A resource written for broad Asia-Pacific or international use may not describe the rule or practice in your location. You are responsible for checking relevant local authorities, licensed professionals, product regulators, employers, institutions, and professional bodies. APMA does not represent that content is lawful, available, appropriate, or complete in every jurisdiction.

14Translations, Accessibility Formats, and Machine-Generated Content

Translations, transcripts, captions, summaries, accessible formats, and machine-assisted outputs may be provided for convenience. Unless identified as an official APMA version, they may contain differences, omissions, or errors. Where versions conflict, the version identified by APMA as authoritative for the relevant service will control, subject to applicable law.

Users should not rely on automated translation or automated summarization for emergency, clinical, legal, regulatory, or other high-risk decisions. APMA may use technology to support drafting, indexing, accessibility, or quality processes, but editorial responsibility and the limits stated in these Terms continue to apply.

15Limited Permission to Use Public Services

Subject to these Terms and any content-specific notice, APMA grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable permission to access and use publicly available services for lawful personal, educational, academic, news, research, or internal professional purposes. This permission does not transfer ownership or grant a licence to APMA names, logos, databases, software, or restricted materials.

You may download or print reasonable portions for permitted reference use if you preserve attribution, copyright, source, date, and disclaimer information; do not materially alter the meaning; and do not imply endorsement or official APMA status. Any statutory exception or user right under applicable copyright law remains available according to its legal scope.

16Prohibited Conduct

You must not use an APMA service to engage in or facilitate conduct that is unlawful, fraudulent, harmful, misleading, abusive, discriminatory, defamatory, invasive of privacy, or inconsistent with the rights and safety of others. Without limiting that obligation, you must not:

• impersonate another person, misrepresent identity, qualifications, membership, affiliation, authority, approval, or the source of a communication;
• present APMA content as personalized medical advice, a clinical decision, an official standard of care, accreditation, regulatory approval, or product endorsement;
• submit patient records, identifiable clinical data, confidential employer information, unlawful content, or material you lack authority to provide;
• harass, threaten, exploit, discriminate against, deceive, or endanger another person;
• send unsolicited commercial messages, conduct unauthorized advertising, solicit funds under APMA's name, or operate a pyramid, deceptive, or fraudulent scheme;
• infringe intellectual property, privacy, publicity, confidentiality, contractual, database, or other rights;
• circumvent access controls, rate limits, paywalls, security measures, technical restrictions, or eligibility requirements;
• interfere with operation of a service, impose an unreasonable load, or disrupt another user's access; or
• help another person do anything prohibited by these Terms.

17Cybersecurity, Testing, and Malicious Activity

You must not introduce malware, ransomware, malicious code, corrupted files, credential-harvesting mechanisms, or technology intended to damage, monitor, disable, or obtain unauthorized access to systems or data. You must not probe, scan, test, reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to discover vulnerabilities in an APMA service except under an express written authorization or a legally protected security-research process applicable to APMA.

If you reasonably believe you have found a security vulnerability, do not exploit it, access data beyond what is necessary to confirm the issue, alter information, disrupt service, or disclose the issue publicly before APMA has a reasonable opportunity to investigate. Report the concern to APMA with sufficient technical detail and without including unnecessary personal or confidential information.

18Automated Access, Scraping, Data Mining, and AI Use

Except where permitted by applicable law, an express machine-readable instruction, or written APMA authorization, you may not use bots, crawlers, scrapers, automated agents, bulk-download tools, or similar methods to systematically extract, reproduce, index, monitor, republish, or build a substitute database from APMA content.

You may not use APMA content, names, marks, or restricted datasets to train, fine-tune, ground, evaluate, or commercially operate an artificial-intelligence or machine-learning system in a manner that infringes rights, removes attribution or safety context, misrepresents provenance, creates a misleading medical output, or substitutes for an APMA service. This provision does not restrict non-waivable statutory rights, ordinary search-engine indexing consistent with APMA's technical instructions, or uses covered by a separate licence.

19User Submissions and Your Responsibilities

You retain ownership of rights you lawfully hold in a User Submission. You confirm that the submission is accurate to the best of your knowledge where accuracy is relevant, that you have authority to provide it, and that APMA's receipt and permitted use will not violate law, confidentiality, consent obligations, professional duties, court orders, or third-party rights.

Do not send confidential patient information, medical records, government identifiers, financial credentials, unpublished proprietary data, or other highly sensitive information through general contact channels. If a specific APMA process requires sensitive material, follow the instructions and secure method provided for that process.

APMA is not required to publish, retain, review, return, or act on unsolicited material. APMA may remove, restrict, redact, preserve, or disclose a submission where reasonably necessary to operate the service, enforce rights, comply with law, protect safety, investigate misuse, or respect another person's rights.

20Permission to Process and Display Submissions

When you submit material for a feature that requires APMA to store, copy, format, transmit, display, review, or share it, you grant APMA a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to perform those acts only as reasonably necessary to provide, administer, secure, evaluate, and improve the relevant service, comply with law, and exercise APMA's rights under these Terms.

This operational licence ends when the submission is no longer reasonably required, except that copies may remain in backups, legal records, published archives, committee records, or materials governed by a separate agreement. A submission intended for publication, conference use, peer review, committee work, research, or licensing may be subject to additional terms that define publication rights, attribution, confidentiality, editorial control, and withdrawal.

APMA does not obtain ownership of your submission merely because you send it. Nothing in this clause requires you to waive moral rights or similar rights where such a waiver is prohibited; where legally permitted and reasonably necessary for the agreed use, APMA may request a specific consent separately.

21Feedback and Unsolicited Ideas

If you voluntarily provide non-confidential suggestions about website features, workflows, or general service improvements, APMA may consider and use that feedback without payment or obligation, provided that APMA does not claim ownership of separately protected material you identify as yours. Do not send an idea under an expectation of confidentiality unless APMA has agreed in writing to receive it confidentially.

Clinical research proposals, manuscripts, inventions, grant concepts, proprietary methods, and commercial proposals should be submitted only through an appropriate announced process or after an authorized APMA representative agrees to receive them.

22APMA Content and Intellectual Property

Unless stated otherwise, APMA and its licensors retain all rights in APMA services and content, including copyright, database rights, design rights, trademarks, domain names, confidential information, software rights, and rights in the selection, arrangement, taxonomy, and presentation of materials.

No right is granted by implication, estoppel, or otherwise beyond the limited permission expressly stated in these Terms. Removing notices, altering provenance, reproducing substantial portions, selling access, creating misleading derivative works, or using protected material commercially may require prior written permission. The separate Copyright Policy provides further detail.

23Names, Logos, Membership Designations, and Linking

APMA's name, initials, logos, emblems, programme names, membership categories, fellowship designations, committee identities, and related marks may be protected and may carry institutional meaning. You must not use them in a domain name, organization name, product, service, advertisement, credential, certificate, social-media account, fundraising campaign, or publication title without appropriate authorization.

You may link fairly to a public APMA page if the link is accurate, lawful, does not obscure the source, and does not imply endorsement, partnership, accreditation, or authorization. APMA may request removal of a link that is deceptive, unsafe, infringes rights, or materially misrepresents APMA. Framing or mirroring substantial parts of the website requires prior written permission unless legally permitted.

24Accounts and Credentials

If a service permits accounts, you must provide information that is accurate, current, and complete; maintain a secure password and authentication method; keep credentials confidential; and promptly notify APMA of suspected unauthorized access. You are responsible for activity reasonably attributable to your account unless applicable law provides otherwise or the activity resulted from APMA's failure to use legally required care.

You must not share an individual account, access another person's account, create accounts through false identities, or transfer an account without authorization. APMA may require identity or eligibility verification and may correct, restrict, or close duplicate, fraudulent, compromised, inactive, or unauthorized accounts after considering applicable notice and contractual requirements.

25Membership, Fellowship, Committees, and Applications

Submitting an application, fee, nomination, reference, expression of interest, or supporting document does not guarantee acceptance, election, appointment, publication, fellowship, committee placement, or any other status. Decisions may depend on eligibility, verification, capacity, governance rules, payment, professional standing, conflicts of interest, and other published or lawfully applied criteria.

Applicants and members must provide accurate information, disclose material changes when required, comply with applicable codes and category requirements, and use APMA status only as authorized. APMA may verify qualifications and references with appropriate consent or another lawful basis. False, misleading, outdated, or incomplete information may result in delay, refusal, correction, suspension, or review under applicable procedures.

Membership or fellowship is an internal professional association status. It does not confer a licence to practise, board certification, specialist registration, immigration status, academic degree, governmental recognition, insurance eligibility, clinical privilege, employment right, or institutional accreditation.

26Events, Programmes, Publications, and Separate Services

Events, webinars, courses, meetings, publications, awards, grants, calls for papers, and other programmes may have separate eligibility, conduct, recording, cancellation, substitution, intellectual-property, confidentiality, and payment terms. Those terms will be presented in connection with the activity where appropriate.

Programmes may change because of speaker availability, safety, technology, law, venue restrictions, force majeure, or other reasonable operational needs. APMA will seek to provide proportionate notice and any remedy required by the specific terms or mandatory law. Attendance or completion does not imply competency, certification, credit, or endorsement unless expressly stated.

27Fees, Payments, Taxes, and Refunds

Prices, fees, currencies, billing periods, taxes, renewal arrangements, cancellation rights, and refund rules for a paid activity will be disclosed in the relevant offer or transaction terms. You are responsible for reviewing them before payment and for providing valid billing information and authority to use the selected payment method.

APMA may use a third-party payment processor. Payment-card information may be collected directly by that provider under its own terms. APMA may delay activation while payment, identity, fraud, eligibility, or compliance checks are completed. Failed, reversed, disputed, duplicate, or unauthorized payments may lead to suspension, correction, recovery of properly due sums, or refund as required by law.

28Electronic Communications and Notices

When you contact APMA or use an electronic service, APMA may respond electronically and may send operational notices reasonably necessary for the service. Marketing communications will be handled according to applicable consent, opt-out, and privacy requirements. You are responsible for maintaining an accurate email address for active applications, accounts, memberships, or registrations.

An email is not guaranteed to be secure, delivered, or read immediately. A message does not create a binding commitment on APMA unless sent by an authorized representative with authority for that commitment and, where required, recorded in a formal agreement. Notices concerning a specific contract may be subject to additional delivery rules in that contract.

29Personal Information and Cookies

APMA handles personal information in accordance with its Privacy Policy and uses cookies and similar technologies as described in its Cookie Policy. Those documents explain the categories of information involved, purposes, legal bases where relevant, recipients, international transfers, retention, security, rights, and user choices.

You must respect the privacy and data-protection rights of others when using APMA services. If you provide information about another person, you must have authority and an appropriate legal basis to do so and must give any notice or obtain any consent required by law. Do not collect or reuse directory, member, contributor, or participant information for unsolicited marketing, profiling, recruitment, or another incompatible purpose.

30Confidential and Restricted Information

Access to a member, reviewer, committee, governance, application, or event area may expose information identified as confidential or reasonably understood to be restricted. You must use that information only for the authorized purpose, protect it with reasonable care, and not disclose it except as permitted by APMA, the information owner, or applicable law.

Confidentiality obligations do not generally apply to information that you can demonstrate was lawfully public without your breach, already lawfully known to you without restriction, independently developed without use of the restricted information, or lawfully received from a third party. A legally compelled disclosure should, where lawful and practicable, be limited to what is required and preceded by notice to the relevant party.

31Accessibility and Alternative Formats

APMA aims to make its public digital information accessible to a wide audience and describes this commitment in its Accessibility Statement. Accessibility is an ongoing process, and some legacy documents, third-party tools, or archived media may have limitations.

If you encounter an accessibility barrier, contact APMA with the affected page, task, and preferred format if applicable. APMA will review the concern and seek a reasonable alternative or corrective action where practicable and required. You do not need to disclose a disability or provide sensitive medical information to request assistance.

32Third-Party Websites, Content, and Services

APMA may link to or embed external journals, databases, institutions, regulators, payment systems, event platforms, social networks, maps, videos, or other resources. A link or reference is provided for convenience or context and does not by itself mean that APMA controls, verifies, endorses, or accepts responsibility for the third party.

Third-party services may have their own terms, fees, privacy practices, accessibility limitations, geographic restrictions, advertising, and security risks. You should review those terms before use. APMA is not responsible for third-party acts or omissions to the extent APMA does not control them, but this provision does not exclude responsibility that applicable law places on APMA.

Statements by authors, speakers, members, committee participants, interviewees, or linked organizations are not necessarily APMA's institutional position unless expressly adopted through an authorized APMA process.

33Availability, Maintenance, Security, and Data Loss

APMA seeks to operate reliable services but does not promise uninterrupted, error-free, or universally compatible access. Services may be unavailable because of maintenance, updates, cyber incidents, telecommunications failure, third-party outages, legal restrictions, emergency conditions, or events outside reasonable control.

You should keep independent copies of material you need and use appropriate security, backup, and verification practices. APMA does not guarantee that content will remain available indefinitely or that a communication, application, or upload has been received unless the relevant service provides confirmation.

APMA may apply proportionate technical measures to protect users, systems, content, and rights, including logging, access controls, malware screening, rate limits, backups, and temporary restrictions. No internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed completely secure.

34Warranties and Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, public APMA services and general content are provided on an “as available” basis. APMA does not make a promise that general content will be complete, current, suitable for a particular person or purpose, continuously available, free from all errors, or compatible with every device or assistive technology.

This clause does not exclude an express commitment in a specific paid-service agreement or any statutory guarantee, warranty, duty of care, or other obligation that cannot lawfully be excluded. APMA will provide a paid consumer service with any standard of care, quality, fitness, and conformity required by applicable law.

No statement by an unauthorised person, and no informal communication inconsistent with an applicable written agreement, creates a warranty or institutional commitment on behalf of APMA.

35Limits of Liability

APMA is responsible for loss or damage to the extent it is caused by APMA and liability cannot lawfully be excluded or restricted. Subject to that principle, APMA will not be responsible for loss that was not reasonably foreseeable when the relevant agreement was made, loss caused by your unlawful or unreasonable conduct, loss caused by a third party outside APMA's reasonable control, or loss that could reasonably have been avoided by following clear instructions or taking ordinary protective steps.

Where you use a free public information service, APMA is not responsible, to the maximum extent permitted by law, for a decision made solely in reliance on general content where these Terms clearly require professional, local, or source verification. APMA is not responsible for business losses arising from consumer use. Where you use a service for business or professional purposes, any additional allocation of business risk should be stated in the applicable service agreement.

APMA does not seek through these Terms to exclude all responsibility for security incidents, service failures, content errors, or breach of contract. The extent of responsibility will depend on applicable law, the nature of the service, the parties' conduct, reasonable foreseeability, causation, and any specific agreement.

36Liabilities and Rights That Are Not Excluded

Nothing in these Terms excludes, limits, waives, or restricts liability or rights where doing so is prohibited by applicable law. Depending on the law that applies, this may include liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, wilful misconduct, gross negligence, breach of mandatory consumer guarantees, or other non-excludable responsibility.

Consumers may have statutory rights concerning digital content, services, payments, cancellations, refunds, unfair terms, privacy, accessibility, and remedies. Those rights remain available. If a limitation in these Terms is broader than applicable law permits, it will apply only to the maximum lawful extent and will not be interpreted to discourage a valid claim.

37Responsibility for Claims Caused by Misuse

To the extent permitted by applicable law, if your intentional or negligent unlawful conduct, material breach of these Terms, infringement of third-party rights, or unauthorized submission directly causes APMA to face a third-party claim, you will be responsible for the reasonable and proportionate loss, cost, or liability caused by that conduct.

This clause does not require a consumer to indemnify APMA for APMA's own breach, negligence, unlawful conduct, or matters outside the consumer's reasonable control. APMA will take reasonable steps to limit avoidable loss, provide notice where practicable, and not settle a covered claim in a manner that imposes an admission or disproportionate obligation on you without appropriate consultation.

38Restriction, Suspension, and Termination

APMA may restrict, suspend, or terminate access where reasonably necessary because of a material or repeated breach, security risk, fraud, unlawful conduct, non-payment, loss of eligibility, misuse of APMA status, risk to another person, legal requirement, or discontinuation of the service.

Where practicable and appropriate, APMA will provide notice, a reason, and an opportunity to correct the issue or seek review. Immediate action may be taken where delay could create material risk, compromise an investigation, breach law, or harm users, APMA, or third parties. Any contractual refund or appeal rights will be determined by the applicable service terms and mandatory law.

You may stop using a public service at any time. Closing an account or ending use does not automatically cancel a membership, event booking, payment obligation, licence, or other separate agreement; the relevant cancellation process must be followed.

39Complaints, Corrections, and Informal Resolution

If you believe APMA content is materially inaccurate, a service has failed, your rights have been affected, or these Terms have been applied incorrectly, contact APMA with enough information to identify the issue. Please include the page or service, relevant date, your relationship with APMA, the outcome requested, and supporting material that can lawfully be shared.

APMA and the user should attempt in good faith to resolve a dispute through direct communication before starting formal proceedings where appropriate. This does not prevent either party from seeking urgent relief, reporting a matter to a regulator or law-enforcement body, using a statutory complaint mechanism, or exercising a right that cannot lawfully be delayed.

40Applicable Law and Dispute Forum

Because APMA serves an international audience and no registered-office jurisdiction is stated on this page, these Terms do not impose a universal choice of law or exclusive court on every user. The law governing a dispute and the court or other forum with authority will be determined by applicable conflict-of-laws, jurisdiction, consumer, procedural, and service-specific rules.

A specific membership, event, payment, institutional, publication, or other agreement may identify a governing law and dispute forum. Any such provision applies only to the extent it is valid and does not deprive a consumer of mandatory protection or access to a court or remedy that applicable law preserves.

Nothing in these Terms requires arbitration, waives class or collective rights, shortens a statutory limitation period, or selects a distant forum unless a separate enforceable agreement clearly and fairly provides otherwise.

41Severability and Lawful Interpretation

If a competent court or authority finds a provision invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, that provision will be treated as removed or limited only to the minimum extent necessary. The remaining provisions will continue where they can operate fairly and lawfully without the affected provision.

No clause will be rewritten to create a materially different obligation that the parties did not fairly agree. Ambiguity will be resolved under applicable interpretation rules, including any rule requiring a consumer term to be interpreted in the consumer's favour.

42No Waiver; Cumulative Rights

A delay or failure by APMA or a user to exercise a right does not automatically waive it. A waiver must be clear and applies only to the specific circumstance for which it is given. Rights and remedies under these Terms are cumulative with rights available under applicable law unless the law or a valid specific agreement states otherwise.

43Transfer, Delegation, and Organizational Change

You may not transfer a personal account, membership status, application, licence, or service entitlement where it is based on your identity, qualifications, eligibility, or payment, unless APMA expressly permits the transfer.

APMA may transfer or delegate rights and responsibilities to an affiliated, successor, or service organization as part of a lawful restructuring, merger, transfer of operations, or service arrangement, provided that this does not reduce mandatory rights or materially disadvantage a consumer without any notice or remedy required by law. APMA remains responsible where applicable law or contract does not permit delegation to remove responsibility.

44Events Outside Reasonable Control

Neither party is responsible for delay or failure caused by an event genuinely outside its reasonable control, such as natural disaster, epidemic, war, civil disorder, governmental action, widespread telecommunications failure, utility outage, or major cyber incident, to the extent the event prevents performance despite reasonable precautions.

The affected party should take reasonable steps to limit the effect and resume performance. This clause does not excuse payment already due, override mandatory refund or consumer rights, or permit indefinite non-performance where the relevant agreement can reasonably be ended.

45Entire Agreement and Reliance

For ordinary website use, these Terms together with incorporated policies and any applicable service-specific terms form the agreement concerning that use. For a separately contracted activity, the signed or expressly accepted agreement and documents it incorporates form the agreement for that activity.

Nothing in this clause excludes liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, or a statement that applicable law makes binding. Consumers retain any rights concerning pre-contract information, advertising, representations, and service descriptions that cannot lawfully be excluded.

46Provisions Continuing After Use Ends

Provisions that by their nature need to continue after access or an agreement ends will survive to the extent lawful. These may include provisions concerning accrued payment obligations, intellectual property, authorized publication licences, confidentiality, records, responsibility for prior misuse, dispute resolution, and interpretation.

Ending use does not authorize APMA to retain personal information indefinitely. Retention remains subject to the Privacy Policy, applicable law, legitimate record requirements, and any specific agreement.

47Contact and Legal Notices

Questions about these Terms, notices of misuse, legal concerns, and requests for clarification may be sent to [email protected] with “Terms of Use Enquiry” in the subject line.

Include your name, organization if relevant, the affected page or service, the nature of the issue, and a reliable reply address. Do not send patient records, identity documents, payment-card data, passwords, or other sensitive information through ordinary email unless APMA specifically requests it through an appropriate secure process.