A campaign for the government’s Prompt Payment Code to be compulsory rather than voluntary as it is now has been gaining cross party support from MPs. The idea was put forward by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), which believes that the current voluntary system isn’t delivering for small businesses. The association has made three
Two builders have been ordered to pay compensation to a married couple despite claiming they were not responsible as individuals for problems with work they carried out. The couple had entered into a contract with builders advertising as HavenBuild, which was a trading name and not a limited company. The contract was for work on
More than 50 councils across England are to share nearly £2.4m of extra funding to crack down on rogue landlords. The government says that while most landlords provide decent homes for their tenants, the cash boost will enable local councils to step up action against the small minority who continue to flout the law and
A financial broker has succeeded in preventing a commercial lender from approaching its clients. The case involved Medenta Finance Ltd, which specialised in financial products in the medical and dental market. It had acted exclusively for Hitachi Capital UK Ltd. Under a 2011 agreement, Hitachi provided finance for the sale of products through suppliers introduced
New regulations contained in the EU Trade Mark Directive 2015 came into force on 14 January. The government says the changes are widely supported by users of the UK trade mark system and will be maintained regardless of the outcome of the negotiations surrounding our exit from the European Union. The changes are designed to
A new one-stop government service allowing start-up businesses to register their company and register for tax at the same time has been used by more than 200,000 new businesses. The Streamlined Company Registration Service, which has been set up in a collaboration between HMRC and Companies House, is designed to ease the burden on new
A company had not acted unfairly when it dismissed an employee for gross misconduct after he made offensive comments about the managing director on Facebook. However, the employee’s behaviour had not been so bad that it warranted dismissal without any notice pay so he was entitled to compensation. That was the decision of the Employment
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled that a hotel worker is entitled to compensation because her employer failed to give her a statement of rights after one month of employment. The case involved three Polish workers who were dismissed after they complained about “persistent shortfalls in their wages, late payment and a falsification of their
The dismissal of a security guard after he submitted a grievance letter on behalf of work colleagues has been ruled unfair by the Employment Tribunal. The case involved Mr M Brough, who worked for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital. In 2016, he emailed the trust’s chief nurse saying that security
The government has confirmed that small and medium-sized enterprises will not be obliged to reveal their gender pay gap. Currently, business employing more than 250 people must publish the pay differential between men and women. It’s part of an ongoing strategy to equalise salaries and eradicate discrimination. Following a review, the Business, Energy and Industrial