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Archive for January, 2008

Is it a mousemat? Is it a calendar? Is it a ruler? Yes!

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Calendar-ruler-mousematFor the last couple of years I have designed a mousemat with a calendar and ruler on it, as a ContractStore Christmas present for, let’s say, 300 of our closest friends. We still have some left for 2008 so if you email us we can send you your free calendar/ruler/mousemat (while stocks last). 

You can also download the mousemat template here and use it to order your own from the printers, or just print it out and stick it on the wall - or on last year’s mousemat. A layer of varnish will protect it.

See - we are not only lowering legal costs for small businesses everywhere but we are promoting recycling as well. The originals are printed on ‘22 recycled plastic cups’ apparently and you can reuse it when the year is up as a place mat - paint it first. For more ideas on recycling your mousemat, get in touch.

Age Discrimination Law - When should partners be put out to grass?

Friday, January 18th, 2008

When age discrimination was banned a couple of years ago, it was still OK to have a retirement age of 65 for employees but this did not apply to partnerships. So partners and their legal advisers were unclear how to deal with the issue - might it be necessary to let partners stay on till they dropped?

Now an employment tribunal has looked at the problem and decided it can be acceptable to have a compulsory retirement age of 65 for partners – but only if it can be objectively justified.

The case concerned a ten partner law firm whose partnership deed said that partners must retire when they reach 65. When the senior partner reached that age, he claimed this was discriminatory and contrary to the regulations.

The tribunal accepted the firm’s argument that a compulsory retirement age was necessary to enable the firm to develop and grow by bringing associates into the partnership. Also the firm had a policy of avoiding expulsion of a partner for poor performance as this was though to conflict with the supportive culture of the practice – in other words, even if a partner under-performs he will be allowed to stay on , but there is a cut-off date of 65.

The conclusion from this case is – if you have a partnership agreement and you want a compulsory retirement age, work out some good reasons why the rule should apply.

This decision may be subject to an appeal but, unless it is overturned, it should give some comfort to partnerships that are wondering how to deal with the uncertainty created by the Employment Equality (Age) Discrimination Regulations 2006.

Courts to decide on overdraft charges imposed by banks

Monday, January 14th, 2008

The OFT (Office of Fair Trading) has applied to the court for a ruling in respect of unauthorised overdraft charges.  The hearing is due to start on Thursday 17 January.

The purpose of the application is to get a ruling on whether the provisions of the UTCCRs (Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations) that deal with unfairness, apply to unauthorised overdraft charges, and will not address whether terms and conditions or specific charges of individual banks are unfair. However the OFT is continuing to analyse information supplied by the banks, and further information on the investigation into unfairness will be published after the judgment has been delivered and OFT has had time to consider any implications.

The application for the declaration is brought against: Abbey National plc, Barclays Bank plc, Clydesdale Bank plc, HBOS plc, HSBC Bank plc, Lloyds TSB Bank plc, Nationwide Building Society and Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc. The hearing is expected to last three weeks with judgment to follow some time later.

The OFT has published more information about the case and has a website section that explains more about the work on bank personal current accounts. Download a copy from http://www.oft.gov.uk

ContractStore supports young entrepreneurs

Monday, January 14th, 2008

The Speaker of Hackney and Jan Pethick meet Catherine BysheimCathrine Bysheim gets ContractStore CD Last week we visited the London Youth Support Trust to deliver 300 CDs donated to LYST, to benefit the young entrepreneurs in the scheme. LYST is strongly supported by the High Sheriff of London Jan Pethick, who attended the presentation, and the Speaker of Hackney, Councillor Faizullah Khan, came by in -between some citizenship ceremonies. He met jeweller Cathrine Bysheim who is one of the young entrepreneurs in LYST’s Hackney centre. We also met several other of the people in the scheme. It was really inspiring to see the work being done there.ContractStore hands over samples of the Legal Start-Up pack to the LYST team

HM Revenue & Customs Interest Rates reduced

Monday, January 7th, 2008

Those of you who are not going to get your tax paid on time (and remember 31 January is the deadline for many of us)  may be interested to know that from 6 January 2008, the interest rate charged by the Revenue on late or overdue payments has been reduced.  And so has the interest rate they will give you if you have made an overpayment.

The rate of interest charged on most taxes including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax and stamp duty land tax  changes from 8.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

The rate of interest on overpaid income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, stamp duty and stamp duty land tax  changes from 4.00 per cent to 3.00 per cent. 

Full details can be found on the HMRC website: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk

2008 - Will it be a Happy New Year?

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

Welcome to 2008. Almost all economic forecasts for the coming year are pretty grim, with oil and food prices set to rise, the credit crunch to continue and house prices falling. 

In the law, whenever the corporate boys run low on work, the litigators and insolvency practitioners start to get busy.  So if, as predicted, things get a lot tougher,  there is going to be more likelihood of business failures, bad debts and contract disputes.

Our advice is - at least make sure you have some decent contracts in place to protect you in the coming times:  a properly drafted contract does for business what a well-tiled roof does for a house.    ContractStore has a wide range of documents than can help to protect your business at a very small cost.  So stop by our website as you come back from the sale at B&Q!

 Enjoy 2008 - the worst may not happen and even if it does, as any real enterpreneur will tell you, there are always opportunities to be had - whether the economy is on the way up - or on the way down!

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