Solicitors of Bracknell

Commercial Client

GDPR Documenting Processing Activities Article 30 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains explicit provisions that require organisations to maintain internal records of their data processing activities. This obligation reflects the increased importance of accountability...
A Guide to the Agency Workers Regulations The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR) came into force on 1 October 2011. They apply to those workers who are supplied by a temporary work agency to work temporarily for and under the supervision and direction of a hirer. All temporary agency workers...
Advice on Acquisitions Deductible One common area of dispute between companies and the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is that of deductibility of expenses. One of the hottest areas of dispute is often whether an expense is a trading expense (deductible as part of the day-to-day running costs...
Age Discrimination and Retirement Since the abolition of the Default Retirement Age (DRA) in 2011, it is not permissible for an employer to dismiss an older worker on the ground of retirement unless this can be objectively justified under the Equality Act 2010 . This does not mean that...
Bank Deposit Protection Rules for Businesses : Guide The levels of protection available for different investments underwritten by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) are detailed on their website. The FSCS protects the deposits of small companies, which are those which meet two of three...
Bribery Act Guidance The Government provides guidance for businesses on complying with the Bribery Act 2010 , which came into force on 1 July 2011. The Act was originally scheduled to take effect in April 2011, but its implementation was delayed to allow the final version of...
Business Relief - Traps for the Unwary Most business people know that for family businesses there are generous Inheritance Tax (IHT) reliefs, which generally operate to make assets used in the business exempt or partially exempt from IHT. The reliefs take various forms but have been collectively...
Buying from an Administrator - Take Care With businesses becoming insolvent in large numbers, opportunities abound to acquire assets from their administrators. However, the low prices sought for the assets are due, at least in part, to the additional risk to the purchaser. Here are some of the...
Companies Act 2006 Overview and Company Information The Companies Act 2006 became fully effective from October 1st 2009. It is the principal source of law relating to the conduct of companies incorporated in England and Wales. Companies House provides useful information on the Act on its website . In...
Company Name Rules You cannot incorporate a company using any name you like. Some names are prohibited (for example, those which suggest a connection with the Government or the Crown) and names will not be allowed if they are too similar to the names of existing companies. ...
Company Disclosure Rules - The Basics The Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 set out the the requirements as to where and when company trading names, names of directors etc. need to be shown. The Statutory Instrument implementing the changes is both short and straightforward. In...
Company Formation Checklist You may have come across advertisements which make forming a company sound very easy, but before you go ahead there are some serious issues to think through. If you have decided that a company is the best vehicle for your new venture then here is a...
Compensation for Loss of Light Following a recent case in which a dispute regarding a property owner’s right to light was unexpectedly dealt with by the granting of an injunction against a developer, a more recent case has offered guidance on how much compensation might be payable...
Construction Industry VAT Changes Ahead Businesses in the construction industry are reminded that on 1 October 2020 the new VAT domestic reverse charge will come into force. This is being introduced as an anti-fraud measure and will see a major change in accounting for VAT on some construction...
Consumer Protection Regulations Businesses that deal with the public are reminded that legislation will come into effect soon to give consumers better protection under the law than they currently have. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 received the Royal Assent on 26 March and became law on...
Contractors Are Your Responsibility A handbook produced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) outlines the responsibilities of both the contractor and the client in situations in which work is carried out by contractors rather then employees. It does not apply to circumstances in...
Corporate Manslaughter and Gross Negligence Manslaughter The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 established a new statutory offence of corporate manslaughter (corporate culpable homicide in Scotland). An organisation is guilty of the offence if the way in which it manages or organises its...
Data Loss - What to Do The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued guidance for organisations that lose personal data, having reported that it has been notified of nearly 100 such incidents to date. One of the less intuitively obvious suggestions is to think...
Dealing With Breach of Patent When you discover that a business has breached your patent, what should you do? The answer to this question has two elements. The first is based on what you can do in law and the second is based on business strategy. Firstly, before picking a fight with...
Dealing With Subject Access Requests Many businesses regard the Data Protection Act 2018 as something that merely requires a lot of form filling and the payment of fees, but there is a lot more to it than that. The purpose of the Act is to protect a person's right to privacy with regard to...
Direct Marketing Via E-mail - Regulations UK law relating to the sending of unsolicited direct marketing material by electronic means are based on the EC Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications and are modified by the General Data Protection Regulation which started to be enforced in...
Disputes in the EU - Rules on Applicable Law Where a dispute has a foreign element, one of the common problems is deciding under what jurisdiction legal action should be taken. This is avoided in many commercial contracts by specifying the applicable law in the contract, but in consumer contracts there...
Drug Policy - Recognising the Signs and What to Do Substance abuse amongst staff can affect all areas of employment, whether it be a decrease in productivity, increased absenteeism or the increased likelihood of accidents and injuries. The failure to identify and deal with a problem is an unnecessary risk...
E-Commerce Law on Disclosure - Compliance Guide The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations introduced specific legislation to underpin e-commerce. If your business has an Internet presence then you need to make sure that you are not falling foul of theserules. The Regulations do not just apply...
Employed or Self-Employed? Whether you are employed or self-employed makes a substantial difference to how you are taxed and the income tax liabilities of an employed person can be very different from those of a self-employed person with similar levels of gross income. The National...