The Government is planning radical changes to employment law to provide a fairer balance between reducing costs to business at the same time as protecting the rights of employees. The proposals are in response to public consultations, including the Red Tape Challenge, in which people were invited to suggest regulations that could be scrapped. The
The stakes have never been higher for businesses when it comes to dealing with the problem of late and non-payment of invoices. Record numbers of firms are going out of business every day. Their demise is often caused by their inability to recover money owed to them. Thankfully, there are many options available when it
Business “common sense” should be applied when interpreting and applying commercial contracts, the Supreme Court has ruled. Delivering the ruling, Lord Clarke said: “If there are two possible constructions, the court is entitled to prefer the construction which is consistent with business common sense and to reject the other.” The issue arose in the case
The Government has announced a number of reforms to end unfair practices which it says have been holding back Britain’s pubs. The proposals have been put forward by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and are in response to the Select Committee’s Report on Pub Companies. They set out the details of a
All businesses and individuals now need to be aware of new bribery legislation which came into force on 1st July this year. The Bribery Act describes actions which involve “a financial or other advantage” being offered or received in exchange for “a business function or decision to be carried out improperly” as being potentially criminal.
When drawing up deeds it is vital to meet all the legal requirements – otherwise the document could prove invalid and cost you thousands of pounds, as one firm found recently. The case involved a financial services company that entered into an invoice discounting facility with two directors of a client firm. A deed was
When buying a business it’s important to ensure that the seller doesn’t try to entice away clients or customers once the sale goes through. For this reason, most firms will insist on a covenant preventing the seller from setting up a rival business or soliciting his former customers for a specified period. The value of
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has warned that consumer landlords are still being presented with potentially unfair terms in contracts with some letting agents. The warning follows the enforcement case last year against Foxtons for breaching the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCR). Foxtons agreed to amend some of its terms concerning
Businesses need to ensure they follow the correct procedures when making redundancies. Otherwise mistakes can lead to claims of unfair dismissal, as happened in a recent case involving a company that needed to lay off a number of staff. The company had selection procedures in place and used them to assess which employees should be