There is a wind of change blowing through employment law landscape. Employers need to think carefully during all stages of the employment relationship before taking any steps.
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Legal guides for small business owners
Key Guides
- Guide to contractsWhat consitutes a contract, and how are they enforced?
- Data Protection ActWhat is the DPA, and how it protects the way information is stored by businesses
- Bribery Act 2010New rules aimed at cutting out corruption within UK businesses
- Companies Act and directors dutiesHow the CA2006 affects limited company directors
- Succession planningHow to ensure that your business continues to thrive without you
- Choosing a solicitorMake sure you get the right professional to represent your business
- Business terms and conditionsHow to incorporate your standard terms into business contracts
- Trade mark tipsWhy it is important to ensure your intellectual property is safeguarded
- Website copyrightWhat to do if your website content has been stolen and used elsewhere
- Partnership agreementsThese will protect you in the even that you and a business partner disagree
- Ecommerce RegulationsThe rules which govern how businesses operate on the web
- Corporate Manslaughter ActNew laws to enforce health & safety in the workplace
Before online shopping became the norm, fake goods were widespread but because you could see and feel the products before buying them you were able to ascertain their providence (or at least try to). This is not the case anymore. Anyone can sell on eBay or Amazon, for instance, and pass off fake goods as the real thing.
Companies selling online without a registered trade mark are therefore at a high risk of unscrupulous competitors stealing their identity to sell counterfeit products. Continue…
If you own a small business you need to keep paper work to a minimum but not cut corners when it comes to employment law. But without any in-house HR support this can be easier said than done.
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Picture the scene. You’ve spent years developing an amazing new product, the likes of which has never been seen before.
It will truly revolutionise the market and give your competitors many sleepless nights with agonising worry.
But it all depends on you shocking the world by announcing your new product at the annual trade fair. If word gets out before, it will ruin all your hard work and give your competitors a head start.
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The Summer holidays are fast approaching and if you are an employer, you may soon be inundated with holiday forms from your workforce, as staff begin to prepare for their holidays.
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Benjamin Hopps of Sykes Anderson LLP Solicitors gives advice on how to make sure your standard terms and conditions of business are incorporated into the agreement between you and your customers.
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If you are starting a new business, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of securing trade mark protection.
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More and more business owners now have their own websites. With the amount of content now available online, how do you copyright the articles and words you publish on your business site?
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The UK’s 3 million family businesses account for over 30pc of gross domestic product, provide 65% of the 4.5 million private sector businesses, employ 9.5 million and hand the Government £47 billion in tax receipts a year, 10% of the annual total.
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In this article, Guy Hollebon from Bevans Solicitors looks at some key legal risks that can affect small businesses and how to manage and minimise such risks. Guy has approached the matter as an expert lawyer and also as a small business owner, providing both legal and practical tips.
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In these challenging economic times, it’s understandable that businesses are exploring where they can cut costs and make savings. Research shows that when it comes to Employment Law, businesses are spending tens of millions of pounds a year on unnecessary paperwork.
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Copyright law is one of the key areas of intellectual property protection. In the United Kingdom, protection applies automatically once the work is created, so there is nothing further that needs to be done by an owner in order to obtain all the benefits of protection. In this article we step through each different types of work that are protected, and explain the extent of the monopoly granted.
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Graeme Jump, dispute resolution partner at North West law firm Mace & Jones, looks at why it is important to have a partnership agreement when setting up a business with colleagues, following a recent case.
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Following on from our recent article on how to find the right small business solicitor, Dr Yuri Rapoport, of the new consumer offering “Rapoport’s Directory”, believes that you shouldn’t be paying to educate your solicitor.
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When running your business, there may be times when you’ll need to obtain legal advice. Quite often, a solicitor will be called upon to review a contract, or to provide a legal opinion on a wide variety of business issues.
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Of all the many things that can disrupt or wreck a business, a change in ownership must be near the top of the list. When family politics are added to the mix of a process that is usually fraught with difficulties in any case, it can be an explosive combination.
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Stephan Weber of Sykes Anderson LLP discusses the new statutory provisions under the Companies Act 2006 in respect of derivative claims by shareholders
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A trade mark is defined as:
‘Any sign which is capable of being represented graphically which is capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. A trade mark may, in particular, consist of words (including personal names), designs, letters, numerals or the shape of goods or their packaging.’
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Interest rates are important. They can substantially affect the return on investments and have a huge impact on inflation and the economy generally. In a highly geared economy like ours, they can be the difference between boom and bust.
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