These Terms set the conduct and legal standards for the United Plasma Expert Network. They are modeled on the practices of established expert networks and adapted for regulated healthcare and biologics work. Questions: [email protected].
1. Purpose and eligibility
These Expert Terms & Code of Conduct ("Terms") apply to every person who registers with or works through the United Plasma Expert Network (the "Network"), operated by United Plasma LLC, a Michigan limited liability company ("United Plasma", "we"). You must be at least 18, legally able to enter into contracts, and permitted by your current obligations to take part.
You are not eligible if you are currently debarred, excluded, or sanctioned by any government authority, including the U.S. FDA debarment list, the HHS Office of Inspector General exclusion list, or U.S., UK, EU, or UN sanctions lists, or if you have been convicted of a crime involving fraud, bribery, or dishonesty.
2. Membership levels and no guarantee of work
Registered experts are listed in our internal index. On-call experts have completed verification and onboarding. Neither level guarantees any engagement, number of hours, or rate. Each engagement is offered at our discretion and becomes binding only when both parties sign a project agreement.
3. Accurate information and verification
You must provide truthful, complete, and current information and update it promptly when it changes. You authorize us to verify your identity, employment history, education, licenses, and references, and to search public exclusion, debarment, and sanctions lists. Background checks beyond public sources are carried out only with your separate consent where the law requires it.
4. Confidential information
You must never disclose, or be asked to disclose, any of the following to United Plasma or its clients:
- Confidential, proprietary, or trade-secret information of any current or former employer, client, or other third party, including where the subject falls within your past role.
- Material non-public information about any company or its securities.
- Protected health information, donor or patient records, or any personal data you hold because of your work.
- Unpublished clinical trial results or regulatory submissions you have access to through a third party.
You may share your general knowledge, skills, and experience, and information that is publicly available. If a question would require restricted information, decline to answer and, where needed, end the discussion and tell us.
5. Our and our clients' information
Client identities, project scopes, questions asked, discussions, documents, and deliverables are confidential. You may use them only to perform the engagement. You may not use them for personal benefit, including to buy or sell securities, and may not disclose them to anyone else. These obligations continue after your membership ends, for as long as the information remains non-public, and indefinitely for trade secrets and personal data. If you are legally compelled to disclose, notify us promptly (where lawful) so that we or the client can seek protection.
6. NDAs and agreements
On-call experts sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement and an Expert Agreement at onboarding. Some clients, including governments and regulated companies, require their own confidentiality terms or security vetting before an engagement; you must accept these to take part in that engagement. Each engagement is governed by a written project agreement setting scope, deliverables, schedule, fees, and payment terms. If these Terms conflict with a signed project agreement, the project agreement controls for that engagement.
7. Employer obligations and consent
Before registering and before each engagement, you must review your employment contract, consulting policies, non-compete and non-disclosure agreements, and confirm that taking part is permitted. Where your employer requires approval for outside work, you must obtain it in writing before the engagement starts. You may not take part in any engagement about your current employer, its parent, subsidiaries, or affiliates, and may not consult on a former employer for six months after leaving it.
8. Conflicts of interest and recusal
You must disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest before accepting an engagement, including financial interests in, or relationships with, the client, its competitors, or the subject of the work. You must decline engagements you cannot take without breaching an obligation, and you must stop immediately and notify us if an engagement moves into such a subject. If an engagement is ended for a compliance reason you report promptly, you will be paid for time already worked.
9. Government officials and public employees
If you are a current government or public-sector employee, you may take part only where your employer's rules expressly allow outside work, and never on any matter your agency regulates, funds, inspects, or decides, or that you can influence through your role. Former officials must observe all applicable post-employment restrictions.
10. Anti-corruption, sanctions, and trade controls
You must comply with all anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Bribery Act. You must never offer, promise, give, or accept anything of value to improperly influence any official or business decision, including facilitation payments. You must comply with applicable sanctions and export-control laws and tell us immediately if you become subject to any sanction, exclusion, or debarment.
11. Scope of advice
Engagements cover operational, quality, regulatory, technical, and strategic advisory within the agreed scope. Through the Network, you do not provide investment advice or recommendations, legal opinions, or individual medical care to clients, and you must not hold yourself out as doing so. Licensed professionals remain responsible for complying with their own professional rules.
12. Independent contractor status
You are an independent contractor, not an employee, partner, or agent of United Plasma or its clients. You control how you perform the work within the agreed scope, and you are responsible for your own taxes, social contributions, permits, and insurance unless a project agreement provides otherwise. You may not bind United Plasma or a client, or present yourself as acting for United Plasma, outside an active engagement.
13. Non-solicitation and non-circumvention
For 12 months after your last engagement with a client introduced through United Plasma, you will not, directly or through another party, provide that client with services similar to those you provided through the Network, or solicit such work, unless we agree in writing. This does not restrict work you had with that client before our introduction, which you should disclose at the time of matching.
14. Intellectual property
Unless a project agreement provides otherwise, deliverables you create in an engagement belong to the client or to United Plasma as set out in that agreement, and you assign the necessary rights on payment. You keep ownership of your pre-existing know-how, materials, and general skills, and grant a license to use any pre-existing materials included in deliverables for the purposes of the engagement.
15. Fees and payment
Fees, expenses, and payment terms are set in each project agreement. You will submit accurate time and expense records. We do not charge experts any fee to join the Network.
16. Compliance training and annual renewal
On-call experts must complete our compliance training at onboarding and every year after, re-confirm these Terms annually, and answer any project-specific screening questions or attestations before an engagement begins.
17. Records, monitoring, and audits
We may keep records of engagements, communications, and compliance attestations, and clients may require that discussions be chaperoned or recorded where lawful and disclosed in advance. You agree to cooperate with reasonable compliance reviews related to your engagements.
18. Privacy
We handle your personal information as described in our Privacy Notice. We do not share your profile with a client without your agreement for that engagement.
19. Suspension and termination
You may leave the Network at any time by emailing us. We may decline, suspend, or end any membership at our discretion, and immediately for any breach of these Terms. Sections 4, 5, 13, 14, and 20 survive termination.
20. Liability, indemnity, and governing law
You are responsible for your own conduct and will indemnify United Plasma against claims arising from your breach of these Terms or of your obligations to third parties. To the extent permitted by law, United Plasma is not liable for indirect or consequential losses arising from your membership. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan, USA, and disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Michigan, unless a project agreement provides otherwise.
21. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms and will post the new version on this page with its effective date. Material changes will be notified to on-call experts by email and apply from the next annual renewal or engagement, whichever comes first.