Category: Legal Advice for Freelancers

A leading law firm is urging the UK’s 4m small business owners to ensure their salary systems are fair following of a glut of equal pay claims in the public sector.

Businesses can benefit from being able to search for low cost online legal documents from a range of providers with the launch of APOD – The Association of Publishers of Online Legal Documents.

Businesses across all industries often look to collaborate with others for mutual advantage. It could be the pooling of resources for R&D; an investment agreement in which one party contributes cash while the other provides technical expertise; or a more complex arrangement involving a separate company with its own funding, management and staff.

The exclamation mark in JOOP! GmbH may be catchy and gimmicky, but it is not a trademark, the EU high court ruled Wednesday.

The spectacular split of rock band Oasis is a cautionary tale in how businesses, even successful ones, operating as a partnership can break up leaving once close working relationships in tatters a leading North West law firm said today.

All businesses have some form of IP, regardless of their field of activity, even if only in their name (trade mark) or their company literature (copyright) and with so much weight being placed on these things by investors If the core revenue of a business results from some form of technology and/or product design, you should take steps to ensure that you protect.

Solicitor Chris Sherliker looks at the interesting case that Sainsbury’s has in the past week decided to take on major supplier Diageo with what might be considered to be a knock-off copy of its iconic Pimms’ brand and at the height of the thirsty Britsh summer.

This month sees the launch of a new and cost-effective way of recovering money owed. As consumers and businesses can sue for money owing at the click of a mouse, and without worrying about how to fill-in and word their own letters and court forms.

A staggering 26 per cent of Brits have used email to dump a lover from the relative safety of their office desks. While 32 per cent have used email to send a saucy message to a lover during work hours, suggesting email is just as important for flirting as it is for deserting!

David Greaves, Director of Deals & Small Businesses at RSA gives up some practical tips on ensuring that cutting back on insurance costs doesn’t mean you find yourself uninsured if you need to make a claim

There has been substantial growth in the number of creative businesses in the UK in the last 10 years. Despite or even perhaps because of the current economic downturn people remain enthusiastic about starting their own business to exploit a creative expression. The process will present many challenges.

Whilst capability is a potentially fair reason for dismissal, it is something of a “poor relative” to redundancy and conduct. The perceived length and complexity of the procedure involved inevitably leads employers to look at more straight forward options, but this can be risky, and capability procedures remain a vital part of good performance management.

Do you know of any business, which:

1. Promotes a product similar to a product made by a particular manufacturer in such a manner as deliberately to mislead the consumer into believing that the product is made by that same manufacturer when it is not;
2. Makes an invitation to consumers to purchase products at a specified price and then refuses to take orders for it or deliver it within a reasonable time?

The rail regulator has announced that almost 400,000 passengers face daily delays in their journeys.  Rail commuters have been hit hard by various problems, including flooding last summer, regular train and tube strikes, and the inevitable ‘leaves on the line’ in autumn.; Those who travel to work by road have their own problems. 

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) published their eighth national survey of absence management policy and practice in July.  According to the survey the average employee now takes 8.4 days off sick each year, costing employers £659 per employee per year.  It is inevitable that some employees will need to take some time off sick but long-term sickness and growing rates of short-term sickness can have a huge impact upon business.  But what can businesses do to do tackle absence?