Legal resolutions
It is January and time for New Year resolutions. We see the same legal problems arising time and time again which could be resolved if local businesses took some basic precautions.
Tony Forster, a Partner and head of our Company Commercial Department, says: “Be prepared is the best legal advice. Know where you stand and anticipate problems.”
It is much cheaper to have good contracts prepared and take advice before a problem arises. Waiting for litigation to occur leads to much larger legal bills. Here are our suggestions for legal New Year resolutions for 2005:
- Make sure all employees have up to date employment contracts and ideally
a staff handbook. New penalties came into force in October if this is
not done. Employees can claim, in certain circumstances, 2 months’ salary
if they have no written terms.
- If you run a company or partnership have a written shareholders’ agreement
and partnership agreement with your fellow shareholders or partners. You
may think you will have amicable relations with them for ever but in practice
people fall out, fall ill or even die. Covering yourself and your family
in advance removes some of the risks.
- Make a will, including appropriate tax planning – this is easy and
sensible and ensures you can minimise any tax due.
- Have written terms of sale and purchase, which are sent out with all
enquiries and orders. They immeasurably improve your legal position if
a problem occurs such as with defective goods or late delivery or the
customer going out of business.
- Have a legal health check or audit – update your written contracts,
look at areas where you are legally exposed from health and safety to
intellectual property, competition law to data protection.
- Consider whether some legal training for staff may be wise. It is no
use the managing director being good at legal matters if staff on the
ground interacting with customers breach legal provisions left, right
and centre.
- Put in place an email and Internet use policy. Staff wasting time on
the Internet at work cost businesses millions of pounds but you may find
you cannot discipline staff if you find them doing this unless you have
good policies in place that set out your rules very clearly.
- Look at how you handle disputes in your organisation. Are complaints
reported to insurers early enough? Do members of staff know where to go
to get urgent legal advice? How is something that may become a major legal
dispute notified to senior management at your company?
- Have you considered legal insurance to cover legal fees in the case
of a dispute? Many companies have insurance covering areas such as unfair
dismissal and other employment claims, professional indemnity insurance
cover and even cover against intellectual property infringement matters.
- Review use of your lawyers, if you have them. Are they cost effective? Do they respond quickly? Is it worth asking other local firms to tender for the work and having a panel of lawyers from which to choose.
For further information on any of these areas contact Tony Forster on (0117) 929 0451 or e-mail tforster@metcalfes.co.uk
This press release summarises the law on issues which we believe may be of interest to your business. It is not a comprehensive review of the subjects and accordingly is published without responsibility for loss occasioned to any person(s) acting or refraining from action as a result of information published