New UK law allows young people born via Egg Donation to discover donor identities

The London Egg Bank Limited (LEB) is a company registered in England and Wales (company number 07782982), with its registered office at 113-115 Harley Street, London, W1G 6AP. These Terms and Conditions govern the purchase and use of frozen donor eggs from LEB and apply to all recipients, whether receiving treatment at LEB or at any registered fertility clinic holding a Third-Party Agreement (TPA) with LEB.

By reserving a donor with LEB, you confirm that you have:

• Attended a consultation with a fertility doctor at LEB or a registered fertility clinic holding a TPA with LEB, and have a treatment plan in place at that clinic.
• Received verbal and written information about your treatment and had the opportunity to discuss the procedures involved in receiving donor eggs.
• Been informed of all relevant information pertaining to your treatment as required by the HFEA Code of Practice.
• Been offered counselling by your treating clinic regarding the implications of treatment with donor eggs and received confirmation of the full cost of your treatment.

1. Ordering and purchasing

• An order is considered complete when you have submitted all required documentation and made payment in full.
• LEB will confirm your order once it has received confirmation of your treatment cycle from your chosen clinic, your signed consent forms, and full payment.
• Please complete and sign the donor characteristics consent form within 3 working days of receiving it, or your order may be cancelled. Please also check your junk or spam folder. If you have any queries, please contact us on 020 7487 5050 between 08:30 and 17:30, Monday to Friday.
• Donor eggs will only be reserved and dispatched after full payment has been received, including any applicable transportation fees.
• Frozen eggs provided by LEB should be used in treatment within 4 months of the date of dispatch from LEB. This is to ensure that your reserved pregnancy slot is not lost.

2. General

• Donor eggs provided by LEB may only be used for embryo creation at the laboratory of a registered clinic holding a TPA with LEB.
• LEB provides eggs to you for your exclusive personal use only. Eggs may not be resold or redistributed without LEB’s prior written permission.
• LEB’s donor database carries a wide selection of available donors. However, availability may be limited at times. Eggs are allocated on a first come, first served basis.
• It is important that you inform LEB of the treatment date agreed with your clinic. Any changes to this date must be communicated to LEB immediately.
• In some cases, it may be possible to add additional eggs to your order from the same or a different donor. Please note that embryos created from different donors may not be used within the same treatment cycle.
• This agreement does not override Paragraph 4A of Schedule 3 to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended), which states that a donor may withdraw or vary her consent to the use of her eggs at any time, including after an embryo has been created. Such variation may occur up until the point of embryo transfer and may result in the discard of any embryo created.

3. Donor confidentiality

• Non-identifying information about each donor is displayed on the LEB donor database. LEB is unable to provide any further personal information about donors.
• All information relating to donors is kept confidential and disclosed only in the circumstances permitted by law. Information on donors comprises sensitive personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018. LEB will only provide relevant information about your selected donor to you for the purpose of allowing you to select an egg donor, without breaching the donor’s confidentiality (Data Protection Act 2018) and the relevant requirements of the HFEA Act 1990.

4. Quality standards

• All donors available via the LEB donor database have been recruited and screened in compliance with donation criteria under the European Tissues and Cells Directive (EUTCD), Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) standards and professional guidance.
• All frozen donor egg samples have been procured, tested, processed, preserved, and stored in a manner consistent with EUTCD and HFEA requirements.
• LEB does not accept responsibility for whether eggs or embryos are accepted by any external treatment centre.
• LEB eggs meet all required quality standards. However, LEB cannot guarantee that a pregnancy will result from the use of donor eggs, nor that any pregnancy or offspring will be free from genetic disorders or infectious diseases. In particular it is not feasible to test for all genetic markers or infectious diseases, and in some cases no available tests exist.
• Donor testing is properly administered, but tests have limitations and results may not be entirely reliable even when returned as normal and LEB’s recruitment processes rely on donors providing accurate information about their genetic and general health history. LEB treats this information in good faith and is not able to independently verify it. However, to date we are not aware of any inaccurate information being provided by our donors.
• Donated eggs are not quarantined prior to use. There is therefore a theoretical risk of transmission of infection through the transfer of embryos.

5. Your obligations

• You must provide LEB with full and accurate information at all times and correct any information already provided that later becomes or is found to be inaccurate or incomplete.
• You must inform LEB without delay of any change in your personal circumstances that may be relevant to your treatment or to the consent given by you or any partner. This includes changes in partnership status or health.
• You must inform LEB of any change to your home address or contact details.
• You must inform LEB of the outcome of your treatment, including whether a pregnancy was achieved and whether a live birth resulted. This information is required by LEB to manage donor family limits in compliance with HFEA requirements.

6. Refunds and cancellation

• You may cancel your order for any reason within 3 working days of placing it and receive a full refund.
• If you cancel after the 3-working-day window but before dispatch, a £1,000 administration fee will be deducted. This reflects the cost of donor reservation, allocation, and processing already undertaken by LEB.
• Once donor eggs have been delivered to your treatment centre, they are non-returnable and non-refundable under any circumstances. LEB has no means of verifying how eggs have been handled, stored, or transported once they have left our premises, and cannot accept returns on quality and regulatory grounds.
• Please note that the egg thaw survival rate and fertilisation rate provided on our patient information materials represent the averages of all patients per stated period of time and age group. We do not guarantee a minimum egg thaw survival or fertilisation rate per patient cycle.
• In the rare event that all eggs fail to survive the thawing process (whether from one donor or a mix of donors), LEB will provide a new batch of eggs free of charge, provided that the receiving laboratory has followed LEB’s egg thawing protocols.
• LEB cannot guarantee that additional eggs will be available at a later date for the purposes of a sibling pregnancy.

7. Limitation of liability

• LEB shall not be liable for any special, indirect, or consequential damages that result from the use of, or the inability to use, donor eggs purchased from LEB, even if LEB has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This includes, without limitation, the cost of treatment cycles, medication, or any other expenses incurred by you or your treating clinic.
• LEB’s total liability in respect of any claim arising from the purchase of donor eggs shall not exceed the total amount paid by you to LEB for those eggs.
• Nothing in these Terms and Conditions excludes or limits any liability which cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.