A Manchester law firm made a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) in respect of the Bounce Back Loan scheme (BBLS), and the number of directors that were disqualified where the company had taken out a BBLS facility.
The response from the Insolvency Service published on 18 January 2023 provides insight into the largescale fraud and misuse of the scheme, since its inception in March 2020 following the Covid-19 pandemic, and the measures taken to clamp down on this abuse of the scheme. It found that the number of director disqualifications has more than doubled in just a year.
Our Asset Based Lending team lead by Alex Chapman and David Gledhill is delighted to have been ranked #1 lawyers in the Business Money Receivables survey.
Bermans team has consistently ranked #1 since 2018 in the Business Money poll and we are grateful to all our clients and contacts who responded to the poll and valued us so highly.
In the budget in March 2021, it was announced that Corporation Tax would be increased incrementally to 25%. After some uncertainty in the past year, as to whether this would proceed, the first increase took effect from 1 April 2023.
Emma Hulbert is Senior Principal Consultant at Lily Shippen Recruitment, a specialist agency for HR, admin and support teams.
Emma covers temporary, contract and permanent recruitment and manages the Virtual Assistant offering. Emma has been with Lily Shippen Recruitment since 2018 and has become the go-to person within the Manchester market, receiving five-star testimonials from clients and candidates. She is passionate about the business support profession and always strives to provide high-level and honest support, going above and beyond.
There have been some key updates in Employment Law recently, which may have flown under the radar with everyone gearing up to enjoy the Christmas and New Year holiday.
In this article, we summarise the key updates for your benefit.
Flexible working
On 5th December 2022, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) proposed to update the existing legal framework in respect of flexible working, as follows:
When businesses enter into contracts with one another, it is common for them to want their own terms and conditions (Ts&Cs) to apply to the contract. However, whether these have been successfully implemented into the contract often does not seem to be of concern to the parties until a dispute presents itself. Having the Ts&Cs adequately incorporated is especially important since it is common practice for businesses to conduct their dealings through contractual documents such as purchase orders and invoices rather than having an actual written contract in place. By not having a signed contract in place, the parties open up themselves to scrutiny over which party’s Ts&Cs are to prevail in case of a dispute.
Intellectual property (IP) covers ‘creations of the mind’ which can include inventions, designs, symbols and names and logos used in business. It is protected by law (copyright, trademarks, and various other forms), allowing people to earn recognition and/or money from what they create. Like other property, IP can be bought, sold, or licensed. There are different types of intellectual property rights including:
In May 2021, the white paper, ‘Scaling Up Institutional Investment For Place-Based Impact’ (the “White Paper”) was published by The Good Economy, Impact Investing Institution and Pensions for Purpose. The White Paper outlined how a ‘place-based’ approach of investing (as already favoured by public and social investors), could be extended to institutional investors who currently invest in mainstream global capital markets. The focus of the research was on investments made by Local Government Pension Schemes (“LGPS”), which have assets with a combined value of £326 million, and how the funds could be used to develop explicit place-based strategies while creating positive financial returns.
You have – all things considered – enjoyed a fruitful trading relationship with a supplier or customer over many years, or at least you have assumed that to be the case.
Then things go sour. You locate your copy of the contract, only to find that it was made by your predecessor company, or the other party’s predecessor, or even both. The change(s) may have been due to a corporate reorganisation. In any case there is no evidence in writing of consent to the change, as required under the contract.
Sophie Robertson (pictured), qualified as a Solicitor in September 2019 and joined Bermans upon qualification as a Solicitor in the Employment team in Liverpool.
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