The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008 (the “Act”) came into force on 16 January 2009, increasing penalties for health and safety offences. Principally the Act: raises the maximum fine that can be imposed when a case is brought in a lower court from £5,000 to £20,000; broadens the range of cases that can be [...]
One of the world’s longest running cases was settle out of court 67 years after it started in 1941. The case, known as Re Jahre, concerned a dispute over the recovery of assets alleged to belong to the shipping magnate Anders Jahre. Jahre died aged 90 before the main trial started in 1983. Although the [...]
The implementation of Section 69 of the Companies Act 2006 gives a person who has goodwill in a name a statutory right to make application to the Company Names Adjudicator objecting to the same name, or something so similar as to suggest an association between the company and the applicant, being registered as a company [...]
From 1 October 2008, there is a new right for individuals, partnerships or companies to object to the registration of a new company with the same or similar name as they use for their own business. This new right has been established under the 2006 Companies Act which itself is being introduced in stages over [...]
The Law Society has just published a report entitled Reforming Bribery setting out proposals which it intends should clarify and simplify the existing laws. Anyone in business should be aware that there already are established offences of bribery and corruption on the United Kingdom statutes. International pressure is increasingly being applied to stamp out activities [...]
In his Pre-Budget Statement on Monday Alistair Darling quietly dumped legislation intended to outlaw income splitting arrangements among individuals that would have effectively forced small, family-run businesses to pay more tax. For some years now the Labour government has tried to take action against income splitting arrangements which it considers “unacceptable tax avoidance”. Leaving aside [...]
Google recently reached an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) under which the firm will pay $125 million to resolve outstanding legal actions against it in relation to its Google Book search service, which offers full-text searching facilities to users. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, is subject [...]
Ask most people how they would structure a new business and the chances are that they will talk about starting a company. That’s fine and works a lot of the time but usually only in conjunction with a shareholder agreement. One of the oldest forms of business structure is the Partnership – and this is [...]
Here’s a question received a few days ago from Ron: Hi, Last year I invested a large amount of money in a limited business. The business made some money but not enough to break even. I am thinking of winding the limited company up although we have been more successful this year/ So I can [...]
Must all companies have a secretary? Yes and No. From 6th April 2008 private companies will not need to have a company secretary but public limited companies still will. Furthermore companies registered before 6th April 2008 will have to change their Articles of Association at an Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders to remove the [...]
The one aspect most likely to delay the start of business for a new company is not the actual incorporation but the printing of stationery. Letter headings and other stationery cannot be printed until after the company is incorporated. This is not just commercial prudence in case a name is turned down, but certain items [...]
The basic ways to structure your business are as a sole trader, in a partnership, or as a limited company. If you trade as a Limited Company you are said to be an “incorporated business” any other structure is called “unincorporated”. There are advantages and disadvantages whichever structure you chose so when deciding on the [...]
On 2nd July 1890 the US Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. This was the first national legislation to try and deal with price fixing deals between companies, which in theory were competitors, to the detriment of their customers. The act, named after its author, Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the [...]
