Terms & Conditions

Welcome to Moats & Markets (the "Site"), available at moatsandmarkets.com. These Terms & Conditions ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Site, its content, its newsletter, its audio/podcast material, and any related services (together, the "Content").

By accessing the Site, reading an article, subscribing to the newsletter, or posting a comment, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Site.

1. About this Site

Moats & Markets is a personal blog and newsletter publishing deep-dive analyses of the business models of publicly listed companies — competitive advantages ("moats"), hidden champions, compounders, and regional or sectoral special situations.

The Site is operated by Carsten Pasternack, Dircksenstr. 41, 10178 Berlin, Germany. Full provider identification is set out in the Legal Notice / Impressum. Contact: hello@moatsandmarkets.com.

The Content reflects the personal observations and opinions of the author. It does not represent the views of any employer, client, or third party.

2. No Investment Advice

The Content is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or any recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or otherwise transact in any security or financial instrument.

The author is not a financial adviser, investment adviser, or licensed professional, and the Site does not provide any regulated financial service within the meaning of the German Banking Act (KWG) or the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG).
Nothing on the Site is a solicitation, offer, or invitation to buy or sell any security. All statements about opportunities, risks, and future prospects are the author's personal assessment, based on the author's own strategy, circumstances, and risk tolerance, and are not suitable as the basis for anyone else's decisions.
Investing in securities involves substantial risk, including the possible loss of the entire amount invested. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
You are solely responsible for your own investment decisions. Before acting on any information found here, you should conduct your own research and consult a qualified, independent professional adviser.

3. Conflicts of Interest and Personal Positions

The author frequently holds, or intends to trade, positions in the companies discussed on the Site. A conflict of interest should therefore be assumed to exist in nearly every article. Where relevant, the author aims to disclose such positions within the respective article. Any description of the author's own holdings or trading intentions is a statement of personal fact, not a recommendation that you take the same action.

4. Accuracy, Completeness, and Timeliness — No Warranty

The Content is prepared with care, but it is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, whether express or implied.

The author makes no representation or warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, reliability, currency, or fitness for a particular purpose of any information on the Site.
Figures, prices, valuation multiples, and other data reflect a specific point in time (typically stated in the article) and may be outdated, superseded, or erroneous by the time you read them.
Forward-looking statements — including scenarios, estimates, projections, and valuation ranges (e.g. bear/base/bull cases) — rest on rough assumptions and are subject to significant uncertainty. Actual developments may deviate substantially.
The Content may be updated, changed, or removed at any time without notice. The author is under no obligation to update any information after publication.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the author accepts no liability for any decision made, or action taken or not taken, in reliance on the Content.

5. AI-Assisted Content

Research, editing, visualisations, and audio/podcast production for the Site are created with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. While the author reviews published material and endeavours to verify facts, figures, and quotations against primary sources (annual reports, investor-relations materials, earnings calls), AI-assisted content may nonetheless contain errors, omissions, outdated information, or misinterpretations. Readers should treat all data as requiring independent verification and should refer to the primary sources cited in each article.

6. Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by applicable law, the author shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or financial damages — including but not limited to investment losses, loss of profit, or loss of data — arising out of or in connection with your access to, use of, or inability to use the Site or the Content, or your reliance on any information provided.

Statutory liability that cannot be excluded or limited under German law — in particular liability for injury to life, body, or health, and liability under the German Product Liability Act, as well as liability for intent (Vorsatz) and gross negligence (grobe Fahrlässigkeit) — remains unaffected.

7. External Links

The Site contains links to third-party websites and sources. These are provided for convenience and reference only. The author has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, accuracy, availability, or practices of any external site. Following an external link is at your own risk. The inclusion of a link does not imply endorsement.

8. Intellectual Property and Use of Content

All Content on the Site — including text, analyses, article structures, charts, images (except third-party images credited to their source), audio recordings, the "Moats & Markets" name, and the overall look and feel — is protected by copyright and other intellectual-property rights and is © Moats & Markets 2026 (Carsten Pasternack), all rights reserved.

You may:

read, view, and listen to the Content for your personal, non-commercial use; and
share links to individual articles, and quote short excerpts with clear attribution and a link back to the original article.

You may not, without the author's prior written permission:

reproduce, republish, redistribute, or systematically copy the Content, in whole or in substantial part;
use the Content for commercial purposes;
use the Content, in whole or in part, to train, fine-tune, or develop any machine-learning or AI model, or engage in automated scraping or bulk extraction; or
create derivative works or remove copyright, attribution, or source notices.

Third-party images and materials remain the property of their respective owners and are used with attribution ("Image: <source>").

9. Comments and Community Guidelines (Netiquette)

Where commenting is enabled, comments are welcome as a space for thoughtful discussion. By posting, you agree to the following:

Be respectful. No personal attacks, harassment, hate speech, discrimination, or threats.
Stay on topic and contribute constructively. No spam, advertising, referral or affiliate links, or repetitive promotional posts.
No market manipulation. Do not use comments to promote ("pump") or disparage ("bash") a security, to spread rumours, or to solicit others to trade. Comments are not investment advice and must not be presented as such.
No unlawful or infringing content. Do not post anything that is illegal, defamatory, obscene, misleading, or that infringes the intellectual-property or privacy rights of others.
Post only content you have the right to share, and do not share others' personal data without consent.

You retain ownership of your comments but grant the author a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to display, store, and moderate them in connection with the Site. The author may edit, refuse, or remove any comment, and restrict or block any user, at its sole discretion and without notice — in particular where these guidelines are breached. The author is not responsible for the content of user comments, which express the views of their respective authors only.

The Site offers a free email newsletter and may allow free registration for members. Registration and newsletter functions run on the Site's own self-hosted publishing platform; there are currently no paid tiers or subscriptions. You are responsible for the accuracy of the account information you provide and for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials. You may unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time using the link in each email.

11. Privacy and Data Protection

Your use of the Site is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how personal data is collected and processed. Please review it to understand our practices.

12. Availability

The Site is provided on a best-effort basis. The author does not guarantee that the Site will be available at all times, uninterrupted, or free of errors, and may modify, suspend, or discontinue the Site or any part of it at any time without notice.

13. Changes to These Terms

The author may amend these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the Site, the law, or the author's practices. The current version, marked with its "Last updated" date, applies to your use of the Site. Continued use of the Site after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

14. Governing Law, Jurisdiction, and Severability

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them or the use of the Site are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Where the user is a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive the user of the protection afforded by mandatory provisions of the law of their country of habitual residence.

To the extent permitted by law, the place of jurisdiction for all disputes is Berlin, Germany.

Consumer dispute resolution: The European Commission provides a platform for online dispute resolution (ODR) at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. The author is neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute-resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

If any provision of these Terms is or becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.