I did look around their site a little before posting. I checked the "About Us" and "Reciprocal Links" and neither mentioned legally using the site design in question.

Especially with phishing and the like so common now, I won't do business with a site that strikes me as the least bit questionable.

Of course you're right that it's much better to not reinvent the wheel. But he needs to make it clear that that's what he's doing, and BiRiBo should make that one of the conditions of using their site design, etc. Having great software isn't enough - transparency is essential.

Cheers,
Scott.