Contracts, Human Resources HR, Employment and legal advice for owners and managers of SME small and medium sized business owners.
All businesses have some form of IP, regardless of their field of activity, even if only in their name (trade mark) or their company literature (copyright) and with so much weight being placed on these things by investors If the core revenue of a business results from some form of technology and/or product design, you should take steps to ensure that you protect.
Solicitor Chris Sherliker looks at the interesting case that Sainsbury’s has in the past week decided to take on major supplier Diageo with what might be considered to be a knock-off copy of its iconic Pimms’ brand and at the height of the thirsty Britsh summer.
This month sees the launch of a new and cost-effective way of recovering money owed. As consumers and businesses can sue for money owing at the click of a mouse, and without worrying about how to fill-in and word their own letters and court forms.
A staggering 26 per cent of Brits have used email to dump a lover from the relative safety of their office desks. While 32 per cent have used email to send a saucy message to a lover during work hours, suggesting email is just as important for flirting as it is for deserting!
David Greaves, Director of Deals & Small Businesses at RSA gives up some practical tips on ensuring that cutting back on insurance costs doesn’t mean you find yourself uninsured if you need to make a claim
There has been substantial growth in the number of creative businesses in the UK in the last 10 years. Despite or even perhaps because of the current economic downturn people remain enthusiastic about starting their own business to exploit a creative expression. The process will present many challenges.
Whilst capability is a potentially fair reason for dismissal, it is something of a “poor relative” to redundancy and conduct. The perceived length and complexity of the procedure involved inevitably leads employers to look at more straight forward options, but this can be risky, and capability procedures remain a vital part of good performance management.
Do you know of any business, which:
The rail regulator has announced that almost 400,000 passengers face daily delays in their journeys. Rail commuters have been hit hard by various problems, including flooding last summer, regular train and tube strikes, and the inevitable ‘leaves on the line’ in autumn.; Those who travel to work by road have their own problems.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) published their eighth national survey of absence management policy and practice in July. According to the survey the average employee now takes 8.4 days off sick each year, costing employers £659 per employee per year. It is inevitable that some employees will need to take some time off sick but long-term sickness and growing rates of short-term sickness can have a huge impact upon business. But what can businesses do to do tackle absence?
Office affairs are classic television comedy fodder. Think of any office-based 1970s sit-com and you will undoubtedly recall a male boss incessantly flirting with his pretty, young secretary.
Things have moved on a little since then, but, according to a recent poll, office romances are still rife. In fact, the survey showed that 59 per cent of the respondents freely admitted to having had romantic encounters in the workplace.
While this is often viewed as a bit of harmless fun and no business of bosses, the reality is much harsher. Many people have no idea that a fling could actually cost them their job. It’s only that bosses turn a blind eye to many affairs that the professional risks are kept to a minimum.
Is the national minimum wage (NMW) rises year on year this increases the importance of SMEs conducting a balancing exercise to ensure payment of sufficiently high salaries to enable recruitment and retention of quality staff, whilst at the same time seeking to minimise business costs as far as possible.
The majority of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act will come into effect on 6 April 2008 but will not be retrospective. So, you have plenty of time to prepare for this.
An organisation is defined in the Act as being: “a corporation (not including sole corporations); a partnership; a trade union; an employer’s association.”
An organisation will be guilty of the offence of corporate manslaughter in England or corporate homicide in Scotland if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a person’s death, and amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased.
Having babies is not a modern fad. Yet the way that employers frequently mishandle issues affecting expectant women you’d think it was something unusual and new to them. Only four in 10 women believe their bosses know how to handle pregnant staff. And we’re not talking about making sure someone gives up their seat in the staff canteen – there appears to be a serious knowledge gap when it comes to maternity rights. It means companies are putting themselves in danger of being liable to claims of pregnancy discrimination.
This kind of discrimination costs employers up to £126 million every year in recruitment to replace the 30,000 or so women who lose their jobs simply because they’re expecting.
An investigation by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) uncovered many factors relating to maternity of which businesses seemed completely ignorant. Some were even unaware that they could claim reimbursement for statutory maternity pay.
The Companies Act 2006 comprises of 1,300 sections, approximately one third of which are genuinely new, including the following areas:
Company formation and constitution;
Company members and directors’ duties and powers;
Derivative actions and secretaries;
Company meetings and political donations;
Company accounts and auditors;
Private and public companies, share capital and allotments;
Company takeovers and investigations;
Companies not formed under the Act and unregistered companies.
What should businesses have done already?
By now all companies should have made sure that order forms and other documents, whether hard copy or electronic, have been amended to include the company’s registered name (as opposed to just the trading name), number, place of registration and registered office. It is easy to overlook the updating of a company’s website in a similar way but such an oversight will make the company liable for a fine. Any officer of the company could also find themselves liable for a fine if they have authorised the issue of a non-compliant document.
