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Woolley & Co E-Zine

Tips and ideas for keeping your business on the right side of the law

Welcome. In this month’s edition we provide some plain English advice for companies facing financial difficulties and provide some tips on how to avoid facing claims against your business for ‘on-line’ defamation.

We welcome your feedback – if there is any particular legal issue you’d like to see covered send the details through to marketing@e-lawfirm.co.uk.

Andrew Woolley

Andrew Woolley, Principal, Woolley & Co

Avoiding Administration

A new Administration procedure, which came into force in September, is designed to help rescue viable companies. But even with this procedure it’s important to follow some simple steps to improve your chances of survival.

If your business is facing financial difficulties, perhaps a customer hasn’t paid a large bill, or has raised a dispute but you still have suppliers and employees to pay there are measure you can take to keep things going.

The most difficult thing to do initially is nothing. Don’t fire off angry letters or try and resolve the dispute yourself.

Our basic advice is to:

Take specialist advice and do so quickly. Insolvency law is a specialist area of the law. Your regular legal adviser may not be able to help or be up to date with the latest legislation. A lawyer will tell you about the various legal measures you can take to keep your company going, fend off creditors and the landlord, and how to reduce your personal risk.
Understand all of your options before making any decisions.
Avoid trying to deal with financial difficulties or commercial disputes ‘unofficially’ – 9 times out of 10 you’ll be the one who loses out.

For a detailed Fact Sheet explaining your options and how to go about taking action visit click here.

Two Special Offers for E-Zine Readers

Shirlaws, a leading Business Coaching company, is inviting Woolley & Co e-zine readers to attend a free workshop on 5 December 2003. Being held from 9:30am-11:30am at Le Meridien Hotel, 21 Piccadilly, London the Workshop will introduce businesses to some of the contextual business models used by Shirlaws to help their clients achieve more revenue, less stress and more time to spend with their family.

Perhaps even more excitingly Shirlaws are offering 3 lucky E-Zine readers a Fact Find to identify growth strategies for their business. This involves interviewing the business owner and other key members of staff. Depending on the size of the business it may take between half to one day. This service would normally cost Ł2,000 but the first 3 E-zine readers with between 5-200 employees, to contact Shirlaws, have the chance to receive the service free of charge.

To take advantage of these special offers email Giuseppina Barnett gbarnett@shirlaws.biz.

To find out more about Shirlaws visit their website www.shirlaws.biz.

On-line Defamation – Employers Liability?

With email and the internet opening up the world of communications to more employees Woolley & Co urge companies to understand their responsibilities. A plain English way to explain libel is to say that it is a “statement by someone on a web site or in an e-mail (for our purposes) which is about another identifiable person and is (a) untrue and (b) seen by others and (c) lowers the person commented on in the estimation of the reader.”

(Libel is “written” defamation. Slander is spoken.)

A “person” can certainly include an individual or a business.

So, as an employer what should you be careful about?

Postings by employees on website Forums, discussion groups etc. You will probably be liable for any damages caused by a libellous comment by them. An example might be a comment such as “They’re crooks!” We will all know that such comments can often be made in an unguarded moment. Normally, in an e-mail or on a web site later sensible consideration that it was a mistake to say it is too late.

An e-mail saying things about a competitor (just for example) such as “Their products are dangerous” even if only circulated internally may still be libel—remember your employees do not always stay with you for ever! What should you do? You should certainly inform your staff about what is acceptable, educate them about the risks and we’d suggest have a “Use of e-mail and Internet Policy”.

And if you run a website with a Forum, make sure you have a published procedure to remove comments about others that they object to. You might not remove the comment if it is fair but it is probably a defence to someone posting a libellous comment to have such a procedure and follow it.

To find out more about these and other legal issues visit the Woolley & Co website at www.e-lawfirm.co.uk.

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