Business Law Updates

The Government has now published final guidance for businesses on complying with the Bribery Act 2010. The implementation of the Act, originally scheduled for April this year, was delayed to allow time for the guidance to be finalised. The Act comes into force on 1 July 2011.

You cannot create a new lease until the old lease has terminated. That was the straightforward message of the Court of Appeal in a case in which a company asserted it had a valid lease over a builder’s yard because the old lease had terminated ‘by operation of law’, allowing the lease to be assigned to it.

A landlord’s attempt to obtain a rent based on the uplifted value of a property was rebuffed by the court because a term in the lease, which was worded in such a way that the rent set by the rent reviews would not take into account improvements made by a tenant, meant that a property erected on the land should be ignored.

As published in the Birmingham Post, 24th February 2011

Recent industrial action by Royal Mail workers, Tube workers and, more locally, Birmingham's refuse worker's together with prospective threatened action by worker's unions in other sectors have put industrial relations law under the spotlight.

A major change in Employment Law for 2011 is the government's decision to abolish the default retirement age of 65 from October 2011.

In October 2010 the Equality Act ("the Act") came into force. It is now the largest body of Discrimination legislation in existence. Its aim is to harmonise, simplify and update all existing Discrimination Law and to create consistent standards to apply to the workplace. Dippalli Naik, Employment Solicitor explains.

Managing staff absence

As the spread of the flu virus accelerates it is more important than ever for Employers to keep themselves updated on what their businesses can do to lessen disruption to trade and to manage staff absences.

This article has been prepared at a time when newspaper headlines warn that we are on the brink of an epidemic and of the very real problems the combined impact the flu bug and noro virus, the sickness bug, is likely to have.

Client Update - Licensing Act

Late Night Levy – there's more (and don't forget to pay your annual fees).

Part 1 of this update told you of some of the major reforms to the Licensing Act currently going through Parliament.

When you do business with someone else, it is important to agree the applicable terms and conditions – merely exchanging terms can be a recipe for dispute, as a recent case shows.

The Government intends to abolish, by 1 October 2011, the Default Retirement Age (DRA) of 65 contained in the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 and has published a consultation document on how it proposes to achieve its aim.

Birmingham, and in particular the Broad Street BID area is praised in the latest Government Consultation on the Licensing Act for introducing crime reduction initiatives that make the public feel safer. According to the Consultation, Broad Street BID has developed town centre wardens, taxi marshalls and cleaning to tackle litter. During BIDs first year there was a 60% reduction in general crime and a 28% reduction in violent crime

The Government have published their consultation document on the proposed review of the licensing Act as highlighted in the previous article by Peter Adkins. With the trade given only 6 weeks to respond, the Government certainly seem hell bent on making changes, Peter looks into what changes they are proposing and the impact these could have.

The Government is today releasing details of its proposed shake up of Licensing Laws with a Consultation on its proposals expected to last no more than 6 weeks just as MP’s start their summer recess.

Employers Vs Facebook - Face it or not?

Over the last few years, social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have become unbelievably popular, with virtually 1 in 5 internet users belonging to one of those networks. They have allowed many people all over the world to stay in touch, upload photos, record their daily comings and goings and gossip about personal, social and work lives. Facebook alone has around 4.5 million users, many of which are UK based.

During the election campaign, George Osborne nailed his colours firmly to the mast of a deficit reduction strategy. He has not disappointed in that, but questions remain over whether the effect of the expenditure cuts and the mixture of tax increases and decreases in the Budget will be to depress growth and to stymie the desired effect in the medium term. Time will tell.

With the world cup due to kick off on 11th June in South Africa, world cup fever is truly upon us all. However for employers the world cup can present a number of challenges in the workplace, not least the possibility of increased absenteeism, loss of focus and concentration and heightened emotion, which could lead to clashes. There will also be employees that are not interested in the football who could still be affected by the actions of others.

New conditions were brought in by the Home Office on 6th April 2010 giving the Secretary of State power to impose up to nine mandatory licensing conditions relating to the supply of alcohol under licence.

Who do these conditions apply to?

They apply to all existing and new Premises Licenses and Club Premises Certificates for 'on sale' of alcohol.

What are the new conditions?

From 6th April 2010, the new mandatory conditions:

Divorce is almost never easy and the financial negotiations can be protracted and difficult, particularly when there are business interests involved. In this article we consider some of the issues surrounding divorce for company directors. In the first section, we deal with directors who are, effectively, senior employees of the companies of which they are directors. We refer to them as ‘employee directors’.

Sydney Mitchell has been appointed by the administrators of First Quench Retailing Limited to deal with the disposal of properties nationwide.

First Quench, which operated a number of well-known off-licence brands, including Threshers and Wine Rack, went into administration in October 2009. Richard Fleming, Mick McLoughlin and Ian Corfield of KPMG, the appointed administrators, subsequently instructed Sydney Mitchell as one of only two firms to deal with the sale of the First Quench portfolio.

In an environment of rising taxes, knowing what you can do to protect your assets for your family’s future is essential. One way of doing this is to set up a trust, but what is a trust?

A trust arises where assets are transferred by one party ("the settlor") to other individuals ("the trustees") to hold for the benefit of others ("the beneficiaries"). The trustees owe a duty of care to the beneficiaries when managing the trust assets.

In a recent case a company director, Paul Edward Raine, was prosecuted for committing what the courts deemed a serious and deliberate breach of section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986. This states that it is an offence for someone to become a director of another company under or known by a prohibited name within a period of five years if they were a director of the insolvent company at any time during the year before it went into liquidation.

Despite talk of 'green shoots' of economic recovery and an improving market, the Insolvency team at Sydney Mitchell are expecting a rise in Insolvency cases heading their way.

Already insolvency statistics show that there is a 39.1% increase from last year in company insolvency's. This includes administrations, compulsory liquidations and creditors voluntary liquidations. Individual insolvency's are also on the increase with a rise of 27.4% from last year. This figure includes bankruptcies, IVAs (Individual Voluntary Arrangements) and DROs (Debt Relief Orders).

This month Dippalli Naik from Sydney Mitchell looks at the recent changes to Employment Law Legislation and how it could affect your business.

Changes are set for 1st October when employers are no longer able to pay tips and service charges through the payroll in order to meet the minimum wage. This change will be set to benefit those working in the restaurant trade where tipping is commonplace. But will inevitably put pressure on the employers who have historically been paying the tips through the payroll in order to make up the pay to meet minimum pay requirements.

When did your company last have a health check?

Reviewing your core business documents is one of those tasks that is so easy to put off. It is never the right time, and there is always something more urgent to deal with.

But ignore it at your peril and you are only storing up problems for the future.