A monthly checklist from Atom Content Marketing highlighting new and pending laws, regulations, codes of practice and rulings that could have an impact on your business.
Businesses appointing commercial agents to negotiate and/or sell licenses to third parties to use their downloadable software will welcome a legal ruling that downloadable software does not amount to ‘goods’, so that their agent will not be entitled to compensation on termination of their agency.
Individuals, or their executors and administrators, who registered a Lasting or Enduring Power of Attorney between certain dates should consider applying for a fees rebate.
Buyers of land should ensure the sale agreement is in writing, sufficient to satisfy English and Welsh law, and that there is a formal transfer of title, after a person who believed he had bought a caravan pitch found he did not own it after all.
A statistical analysis showing women clustered at the lower end of a pay grade, and men clustered at the top, was not evidence women were ‘particularly disadvantaged’ for equal pay purposes, given there was no significant difference in the average pay of male and female employees, a recent ruling decided.
Employers offering enhanced contractual maternity pay to mothers should consider also giving enhanced pay to fathers in the event of a couple choosing to take shared parental leave, or risk a direct or indirect discrimination claim.
Parties negotiating a potential joint venture should ensure their discussions are completed, and preferably committed to writing, before they take any action to carry out their joint venture, or risk the court ruling later that there was no enforceable agreement between them.
Owners of intellectual property (IP) rights such as trade marks are likely to find it harder to obtain details of UK domain name owners allegedly infringing their IP rights from May, because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Parties to an agreement who wish to stop terms from later being implied into it cannot rely on an ‘entire agreement clause’ to do so, and should therefore consider other ways to preclude terms from being implied, a recent legal ruling makes clear.
Businesses bringing claims under UK intellectual property law, such as for infringement of their trade marks, who are required to show that the infringer’s website was targeting the public in the UK, will welcome clarification from the court on the relevant factors to take into account.
Owners of land should ensure waste is not, and will not be, stored illegally on their land by their tenants or other occupiers, even if brought onto that land legally, and all businesses should ensure they only deposit waste at permitted sites or they may have to pay landfill tax, as a result of new changes to environmental waste rules.
Disclaimer: This article from Atom Content Marketing is for general guidance only, for businesses in the United Kingdom governed by the laws of England. Atom Content Marketing, expert contributors and ICAEW (as distributor) disclaim all liability for any errors or omissions.
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