In our final procurement update of 2009 we report on two important administrative changes: new advertising thresholds, and new OJEU notices. New advertising thresholds published These will apply for two years from 1 January 2010. As predicted, because Sterling has been so weak against the Euro, the Sterling thresholds have actually gone up significantly (meaning slightly fewer contracts will be caught by the full Regulations) ...
At the same time, the effective rate of tax on dividends for high earners will rise from 25% to 36%. No changes are currently proposed to the rate of capital gains tax which means it will remain at 18%. However, both main parties have now admitted that further tax increases are likely. With the gap between income tax and capital gains being a massive 32%, it seems unlikely that the current generous rate of capital gains tax will remain in place ...
When a company goes into administration, a statutory moratorium takes effect to help the administrators achieve the objectives of the administration. Amongst other things this means that no legal process can be started or continued against the company without the consent of the administrators or the court ...
Lenders who take legal charges over real property usually require their interest to be 'noted' on the insurance policy covering the property. However, this may not give them the protection they require, especially in the current economic climate. It is quite appropriate that lenders want to be certain that insurance arrangements covering a property used as security are satisfactory ...
Currently, employers can lawfully require employees to retire at 65 (the so-called default retirement age) as long as they follow the correct procedure. This has come under increasing criticism, and is currently the subject of a legal challenge by the charity Heyday (part of Age Concern). Whatever the outcome of the Heyday challenge, the Government had previously said it would review the default retirement age in 2011 to see if it was still needed ...
The House of Lords has made it easier for claimants to show that they are "disabled" and thus protected under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 ("DDA"). Employees are only protected under the DDA if they can show that they are "disabled". This word has a specific legal meaning: "a person has a disability .. ...
As more companies feel the effects of the recession, suppliers must ensure they are properly protected should customers struggle to pay their bills, fall into financial decline or, worse, insolvency. A common form of security is a Retention of Title (RoT) clause in the supplier's contract. This aims to afford the seller the ability to recover goods that have not been paid for, and/or to give precedence over other creditors should the worst happen ...
A recent Court of Appeal case has cast doubt on the value of such 'non-waiver' clauses. When a party to a contract waives a breach of that contract by the other party, it voluntarily abandons its legal rights to enforce the contract, or to claim any remedy, in relation to that breach. A waiver must be clear, but may be oral or written. Importantly, a waiver need not be express, but can be inferred from a course of conduct ...
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has launched the new Privacy Notices Code of Practice. It is the most recent step in the ICO's continuing battle to ensure consumers are kept informed about how and why their personal data will be processed. Months of ICO research has revealed that over half of consumers do not understand what they are signing up to when they fill in online and paper forms ...
The Bill requires online retailers to take 'all reasonable steps' to avoid selling age-restricted products to those underage. It also requires annual advice from government to retailers setting out what constitutes 'all reasonable steps' ...
Customs has changed, with immediate effect, the way in which they deal with goods suspected of infringing brand owners' intellectual property rights. The changes are bad news for brand owners who now have to initiate court proceedings each and every time they wish Customs to seize a consignment of infringing goods ...
Auction sales can raise difficulties when determining whether the transaction is a transfer of a going concern (“TOGC”) as there are two possible situations at which the tax point occurs. If the deposit is being held as agent then the tax point is from the moment the auctioneer's hammer goes down ...
On 15 April 2009, the Law Society published an updated practice note on mortgage fraud ...
Service charges are going to be a major bone of contention between landlords and tenants during the recession, as landlords seek to maximise returns from property, and tenants seek to count every penny. This could lead to a mountain of litigation, all of it protracted, and all of it destined to sour landlord and tenant relations for many years to come ...
The British Property Federation (BPF) has published a guide for landlords and tenants explaining the Government's proposed Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), and illustrating how expected additional costs might be shared. Around 5,000 large public and private organisations are likely to be full participants in CRC, and it has been estimated that energy costs will increase between 7% and 15%. The introductory phase is due to start in April 2010 ...
Mobile phone companies Vodafone and Telefónica O2 have agreed to pool their UK network infrastructure They are following the lead of H3G and T-Mobile, who are already one year into their joint consolidation project. The operators aim to share existing sites with the intention of reducing the total rent roll each company pays to landlords ...
Indemnity clauses and negligence - a review of the impact of the judgment in the Buncefield disaster case on the effect of indemnity clauses and whether a party can recover under an indemnity clause where it caused the damage by its own negligence ...
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that luxury brand owners can use their trade mark rights to prevent licensees selling goods to discount stores in breach of licence. Facts In 2000, Dior entered into a trade mark licence with Societe Industrielle Lingerie (SIL) for the manufacture and distribution of corseted clothing bearing the 'Christian Dior' trade mark ...
We are increasingly being asked: “Is it more likely that individuals rather than companies will be prosecuted under the new Health and Safety Offences Act 2008?”. The new Act, which came into force in January 2009, did not introduce any further duties on either organisations or individuals, but it did dramatically increase the penalties that can be imposed for breaches of existing health and safety legislation ...
The House of Lords has today given its long awaited judgement in the Stringer case (previously known as Ainsworth). The House of Lords allowed the employees' appeal, overturning the Court of Appeal's earlier decision and substituting the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal ...
The long-awaited and controversial Equality Bill (the Bill) has been published and laid before Parliament. Public consultations are scheduled on several of the measures outlined in this very significant piece of legislation, though it is not expected to come into force until the end of next year. With a General Election likely in June 2010, it remains to be seen how quickly the Bill will progress and how much of it will survive ...
A lot hinged on the answer to the following question for thousands of businesses and organisations across the UK. When is equipment used at work not work equipment for the purposes of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998? It was put before the House of Lords at a hearing on 4 February 2009, exactly one year after the same question was considered by the Court of Appeal ...
How far do you have to go in carrying out risk assessments when the risks to your employees arise from activities conducted off your premises? It is a question that has always troubled health and safety advisors. The recent decision of the House of Lords in Smith (Jean) v Northamptonshire County Council, 2009 has helped to define the boundaries. In this case a care worker employed by the council was injured at a client's home ...
In 1996, the case of Hindcastle v Barbara Attenborough Associates settled the effect of disclaimer on a lease guarantee but since then a new leasehold regime has been introduced. A recent case, Shaw v Doleman, has revisited the effect of disclaimer in this context. Original tenants of leasehold property paid a high price in the property crash of the 1990s ...
In early 2008, 'green computing' and the idea that companies were going to need to implement new measures to improve their green credentials was one of the hot topics in IT. You might have been forgiven for thinking that environmental concern would be among the first casualties of the credit crunch and the resulting recession ...
