Terms & Conditions

1. Provider and scope

These Terms & Conditions (“Terms”) govern the use of Sharpe League, including the website, account area, paper-trading tools, analytics, leaderboards, leagues, and related support services (together, the “Service”). The Service provides student associations and university finance societies with infrastructure to organise private paper-trading competitions, member participation, rankings, and portfolio-performance analytics.

The Service is operated by HouseAlone, trading as Sharpe League (“Sharpe League”, “we”, “us” or “our”), registered with the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce under KVK number 42078906, VAT ID NL005477900B96. Our postal address is Randweg 116A, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Contact and complaints: info@sharpeleague.com, +39 327 070 5577.

By creating an account, using the Service, or buying a paid membership, you agree to these Terms. If you use the Service for an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation. Mandatory consumer law always prevails over conflicting Terms.

2. What the Service is — and is not

Sharpe League is an educational, simulated paper-trading and competition platform. It is not a bank, broker, investment firm, financial adviser, tax adviser, or legal adviser. The Service does not provide personalised recommendations, execute real-money orders, custody assets, or guarantee results.

Market data, calculations, rankings, portfolio analytics, simulations, sample scenarios, and all other information in the Service are for educational and informational purposes only. Simulated, historical, or risk-adjusted results do not predict future performance. You remain solely responsible for any real-world financial decision.

Unless separate official rules expressly say otherwise, participation does not create a right to a prize, payment, employment opportunity, investment, or endorsement. Any future prize competition must be governed by separate official rules, including eligibility, territory, award, tax, and verification conditions.

3. Eligibility, accounts, and identity

You must be at least 16 years old to use the Service. Participants aged 16 or 17 must obtain the guardian approval required by the Service before participating where required and before starting or changing a paid membership. We may request reasonable evidence of eligibility where necessary to protect participants, enforce these Terms, or comply with law.

The closed pilot is offered to people who reside in a European Union Member State. Do not create or use an account if you reside outside the European Union. We may ask for information reasonably needed to verify this requirement before enabling features, paid membership, or a future prize competition.

You must provide accurate, current information, keep your account credentials confidential, and promptly update your information when it changes. One person may not create or operate accounts to evade eligibility rules, duplicate trials, manipulate rankings, or bypass a suspension. Tell us promptly at info@sharpeleague.com if you suspect unauthorised access.

Your competition nickname, participant code, ranking, portfolio performance, and league activity may be visible in the Service. Your account name is private by default. Optional profile fields, including your name, university, biography, and social links, follow the visibility settings you select; however, public competition rankings remain visible as described in the Privacy Notice.

4. Connected paper portfolios and third-party services

You may connect only an Alpaca paper-trading account that you are authorised to use. When you choose Connect with Alpaca, you authorise Sharpe League through Alpaca’s OAuth flow to access paper-account information and place paper transactions you direct through the Service. During the closed pilot, you may instead provide an Alpaca paper API key and secret for the same limited purpose; we encrypt that material before storage. We do not request your Alpaca password or support live-account authorisation.

Alpaca, Stripe, Google, Supabase, Cloudflare, and email delivery providers are independent services with their own terms and privacy notices. Their availability and actions are outside our control. We are not affiliated with Alpaca unless we state otherwise in writing. You are responsible for complying with the applicable third-party terms.

5. Fair participation and prohibited conduct

You must use the Service lawfully and fairly. You must not: interfere with the Service or its security; scrape or automate access except through an approved interface; reverse engineer except where mandatory law permits it; submit malicious code; impersonate another person; use offensive, misleading, or infringing profile content; manipulate data, rankings, eligibility, trials, or subscriptions; or use the Service to promote real-money trading or unlawful conduct.

We may investigate suspected breaches, remove content, correct or disqualify affected results, limit access, suspend or close accounts, and preserve evidence where reasonably necessary. We will act proportionately and, where practicable, explain the decision and provide a route to contact us.

6. Leagues, metrics, and ranking integrity

Leagues may have additional visible rules, dates, eligibility requirements, and trading-cost assumptions. Those rules form part of these Terms for that league. Scores and ranks may be delayed, provisional, recalculated, corrected, or removed if data is incomplete, a rule has been breached, a defect is found, or the integrity of a competition requires it.

When a student association operates a league with us, it is a joint controller with Sharpe League for the participant data needed to administer that league. The association must provide its own contact details, local rules, and eligibility information to its members, and may use that data only for the agreed league purpose.

We aim to make the rules and score inputs understandable, but market data and third-party account data can be delayed, unavailable, or corrected. A displayed rank is not a representation of skill, suitability, or real-world investment performance.

7. Paid memberships, trials, and billing

Free access may be available. Paid membership features, price including VAT where applicable, billing interval, trial terms, and renewal terms are shown before you place an order in Stripe Checkout. A paid membership is a recurring monthly subscription unless the checkout page states otherwise. We do not add a charge that was not shown before you submit the order.

Where a free trial is offered, it is limited to one eligible trial per participant and plan as stated at checkout. Unless cancelled before the trial ends, the selected paid membership begins automatically on the disclosed terms. Payment handling is provided by Stripe; we do not receive or store your full payment-card details.

You can manage ordinary cancellation through the Stripe billing portal available from your Account. Cancellation stops renewal and normally leaves paid access available through the end of the current paid period. A price, tax, feature, or Terms change that affects an existing paid membership will be communicated in advance where required by law, and you may cancel before it takes effect.

8. Consumer withdrawal and refunds

If you are a consumer buying online, you generally have a statutory 14-day right to withdraw from a paid membership without giving a reason. For a service, the period starts when the contract is concluded. This statutory right does not apply to business customers and may be affected only where a statutory exception applies.

To request withdrawal, use the clearly labelled withdrawal action in your Account or send an unambiguous notice to info@sharpeleague.com with the subject “Withdrawal request”, your account email, the plan purchased, and the purchase date. You may use this statement: “I hereby withdraw from my subscription for [plan], ordered on [date], account email [email].” We will acknowledge an online withdrawal request on a durable medium.

Where you expressly request that the paid Service begins during the withdrawal period, any amount payable for use before withdrawal is governed by applicable law and the express checkout acknowledgement required for that purpose. We will refund amounts due using the original payment method unless you agree otherwise. This section does not limit your statutory consumer rights.

Before any change to checkout or payment handling is released, we will verify the statutory pre-contract information, withdrawal function, immediate-performance acknowledgement where applicable, and durable confirmation.

9. Intellectual property and feedback

We and our licensors retain all rights in the Service, including its software, design, names, logos, data presentation, and content. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the Service for its intended purpose. You may not copy, sell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service except with our prior written permission.

You retain rights in content you provide, such as profile text and links. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, reproduce, adapt for technical display, and make that content available in accordance with your chosen visibility settings and the Service. If you send feedback, you allow us to use it without restriction or compensation, without identifying you unless we agree otherwise.

10. Availability, changes, and support

We may maintain, update, suspend, or change the Service to improve it, address security or legal needs, or reflect third-party changes. We will use reasonable efforts to avoid material disruption and will give notice where required. We do not guarantee uninterrupted, error-free, or loss-free operation.

Contact us at info@sharpeleague.com for support or a complaint. Please include enough information for us to identify the account or transaction and investigate. We aim to acknowledge complaints promptly and provide a substantive response within a reasonable time.

11. Liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including mandatory consumer protections and liability for intentional misconduct or gross negligence where Dutch law does not permit a limitation.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, loss caused by real-world investment decisions, or loss arising from third-party services, market-data errors, network failures, or unauthorised access caused by your failure to protect your account. Any further limitation or cap for business users will apply only if it is confirmed after legal review and communicated lawfully.

12. Ending the agreement

You may stop using the Service at any time and may delete your account from Account settings, subject to the steps needed to close or transfer an active league you own. Account deletion removes the sign-in, profile, linked portfolios, guardian approval record, and encrypted Alpaca OAuth token material or paper API-key material. Historical final standings may remain under a pseudonym and participant code without a link to your deleted account; legally required billing records may remain with Stripe.

We may end or suspend access where reasonably necessary for a material breach, security risk, suspected fraud, legal obligation, or prolonged inactivity. We will not terminate a consumer’s paid service without respecting mandatory legal rights.

13. Privacy, changes, and applicable law

Our Privacy Notice explains how we process personal data. It forms part of these Terms.

We may update these Terms. For a material change, we will provide advance notice by an appropriate durable method or in the Service where legally required. The version accepted at the relevant time will apply, unless mandatory law requires otherwise.

Dutch law applies, except where mandatory law in your country of residence gives you greater protection. If you are a consumer, you may bring a claim in a court that has jurisdiction under mandatory law. For business users, the courts of Rotterdam, The Netherlands have exclusive jurisdiction, unless mandatory law provides otherwise.