Company Commercial

This briefing note sets out how your business can comply with its obligations under consumer protection legislation.

This briefing note sets out the duties your business owes to members of the public when you provide them with goods, services or facilities. Since 1^st October 2010, these rules are set out in the Equality Act 2010.  

This briefing note highlights the key legal obligations your business should consider when dealing with personal data about: 

• Customers.
• Suppliers.
• Employees.
• Any other individual who you may encounter in the course of business.

This briefing note highlights the key data protection issues your business should consider when carrying out direct marketing. It explains how your business should collect information about your customers (including individual customers, named individuals within a business and businesses themselves) and how to communicate information about your products and services to existing and potential customers.

This briefing note highlight the key issues to consider when negotiating contracts on behalf of your business.  You should always take legal advice if you are negotiating a large or unusual contract.

This briefing note highlight some of the major pitfalls that your business needs to be aware of, and should avoid, during a contract negotiation.  You should always take legal advice if your business is negotiating a large or unusual contract.

The Provision of Services Regulations 2009 apply to the majority of private sector businesses in the UK.  They apply to business-to-business and business-to-consumer services.

The Regulations impose obligations on businesses to make certain information available to customers, and to deal with customer complaints promptly.  They also prohibit discrimination against individual customers in the provision of services on the basis of their place of residence.

This briefing note highlights the different types of intellectual property (“IP”) rights that your business needs to be aware of to ensure that you: 

• Protect what you create.
• Maximise your competitive position.
• Avoid infringing the IP rights of other people and businesses.

Choice of business – Sole trader, partnership, limited company or LLP?

When starting up your business one of the issues to think about is what sort of legal structure you might need.  There are four widely used forms of business structure used in the UK, as follows: 

• sole trader
• a partnership (or “firm”)
• a limited liability partnership (or “LLP”)
• a limited company (this briefing note only deals with private limited companies).

This checklist sets out the practical steps that will help your business protect, use and exploit any brand that it owns.

What is a brand?

A strong brand helps distinguish your products from your competitors’.  It adds value to your business by enhancing consumer awareness and improving customer loyalty.  A strong brand can be a very valuable commercial asset.  A brand can be made up of many elements, including:- 

• A logo (Nike swish)
• A word (Kodak)
• A colour (Virgin red)
• A shape (Coca-Cola bottle)
• A strap line or jingle (the future’s bright, the future’s Orange)
• A domain name (Amazon.com)
• A person’s name (David Beckham)