In Business
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Spring 2008
A great match at Wimbledon
Hart Brown solicitors is delighted to announce new offices in Wimbledon Village, South West London.
Hart Brown has merged with Ponsford Devenish - a long-established firm of solicitors conveniently located on the high street in the Village.
“This is a very exciting and natural development for Hart Brown as we already have many clients and contacts in the London area,” said Bettina Brueggemann, Managing Partner.
Bruce Ross, Senior Partner at Ponsford Devenish, said, “Our services complement those which Hart Brown is experienced in delivering. Our clients will benefit from the added strength and depth gained by this merger, as well as new and innovative aspects of client care which Hart Brown is able to offer.”
Bettina added, “Hart Brown is well known for its approachability whilst always delivering an efficient and high-quality service. We believe in always putting our clients’ interests first and thereby building meaningful long-term relationships that add value and enhance our clients’ success. This is very much an approach mirrored by Ponsford Devenish. Opening this Wimbledon office will add to our capacity to serve our broad range of clients and the private and commercial community generally.”
The existing staff of Ponsford Devenish will remain at the Wimbledon Village office and continue to assist their clients as before. “We have, however, exciting plans to expand the team in the near future,” said Bruce Ross.
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Half of Britons feel discrimination
A survey conducted for the recently-formed Equality and Human Rights Commission revealed that nearly half of all people in Great Britain believe that they have faced unfair discrimination, many at work.
This is despite the fact that over the last 30 years ‘equal opportunities’ have had a lot of media attention. Equal opportunities relate to discrimination on the grounds of sex, gender recognition, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age and race.
Equality and Human Rights Commission Chief Executive, Dr Nicola Brewer, said that often people don’t have the means or the information to do something about discrimination. The work of the Commission is to provide commonsense advice and support to individuals and employers to change this.
Equal opportunity rights aim to influence behaviour to prevent discrimination. This is largely done through legislation, including the nine Acts of Parliament and seven Parliamentary Regulations dating from 1970 to 2006.
From the employee’s perspective, equal opportunity rights afford a great deal of protection. Even those who are not employed have the right to take employers to the Employment Tribunal, if they feel they were not selected for a particular job on discriminatory grounds.
Gerard Gibbs, Employment Lawyer, says, “There is a temptation for employers to groan at the thought of equal opportunities and view them as ‘red-tape’ and ‘political-correctness gone mad’, but we at Hart Brown would encourage a broader outlook.
“Implementing equal opportunities policies, from recruitment through to bonus schemes, offers benefits to employers by ensuring that everyone in an individual organisation is valued and given an opportunity to realise and expand their potential. Of course, it also has the added benefit of avoiding expensive and time-consuming employment tribunal claims being brought against employers.”
For further information
please contact Gerard Gibbs on 01483 887766.
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Directors' personal liability
The Court of Appeal in the recent case of Contex Drouzhba Limited v Wiseman considered the issue of whether directors can be held personally liable for implied representations when signing a contract on behalf of a company.
Some of the law that the Court considered was over 200 years old and provides that a person will not be liable for misrepresentation regarding another person when obtaining credit, money or goods, unless the representations are in writing and signed by the person making the representations. In addition, a person who has made such a false representation would be liable for deceit.
In this case, the dispute concerned an agreement to purchase goods which would be paid for in the future. The purchasing company failed to pay for the goods and the party that had brought the claim (the Claimant) contended that the director who had signed the contract on behalf of the purchasing company had made fraudulent misrepresentations that the company would be able to pay for the goods.
The High Court found in the Claimant’s favour.
The defendant appealed the decision. He contended that he had not made representation as to the company’s ability to meet any obligations under the contract and, even if he had, he was entitled to be covered by the defence that the representation was not made in writing.
The Court considered whether an implied representation (rather than a written representation) could make the director personally liable and held that in this case, it did, although in other cases it may not.
The ruling could have a positive bearing on the options available to creditors of companies in insolvency proceedings. Creditors could argue that they have a right of action in deceit against directors who have behaved in a fraudulent manner (in addition to normal recourses available against directors who have traded fraudulently).
For further information
please contact Nigel Maud on 01483 887766.
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Coping with late payments
According to research from the Federation of Small Business (FSB) the time spent chasing late payment, and the effects of dealing with bad debt, are costing UK businesses dear.
In fact, small-and- medium-sized businesses spend an estimated 286 million man hours and nearly £3.6bn per year on it.
However, there is much you can do to protect your business. For further information see our website article here.
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Energy Performance Certificates
From April 2008 the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2007 will affect those selling, leasing or underleasing a commercial property.
By 6 April newly built or newly-leased buildings over 10,000m² must have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). Buildings over 2,500m² will need an EPC by 1 July 2008 and other commercial buildings must have one by 1 October 2008.
When new construction is complete, a constructor must give an EPC and recommendations report (see below) to the owner of the building.
In general, an EPC is required on the selling, letting or construction of a property. Existing occupiers and tenants will not need an EPC unless they sell, assign or sublet their interest. Where the building is to be sold or rented out, the ‘relevant person’ must make available, free of charge, a valid EPC to any prospective buyer or tenant.
An EPC shows the energy rating for a building, based on the performance potential of its fabric and services (heating, ventilation and lighting). The certificate will provide an energy rating of a building from A to G, where A is very efficient and G is the least efficient. The EPC will be accompanied by a recommendation report on how the energy performance of the building could be improved and a guide to the period over which the benefit of efficiency improvements are to be felt.
An accredited assessor must be commissioned to carry out the assessment.
The EPC can be valid for up to 10 years and will be stored on a national register operated by Landmark Information Group Ltd. Trading Standards Officers are responsible for enforcing the requirement to have an EPC.
Buildings only require an EPC if energy is being used to condition the indoor climate, so those which only have electricity and/or hot water are exempt.
Landlords granting leases of part, and tenants assigning leases relating to part of a building, will need to consider the need to provide an EPC carefully.
The new regulations raise many important questions and issues generally - especially for landlords - who may consider how they can improve energy efficiency in their buildings in order to maintain their market value.
For further information
contact Rod Campbell on
01483 887766
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Keeping up with the times
How much do you notice inflation? While you probably pay attention to whether your income is keeping pace with it, you should also consider your life and health cover.
These covers will often be designed with replacement of your current income in mind. It is therefore important that they are regularly reviewed and kept up to date.
For example, if you put in place life cover of £100,000 five years ago, then to maintain the same purchasing power now, you would need just over £117,500 of protection (the RPI has increased by 17.7% between November 2003 and November 2007, according to the Office of National Statistics). If your earnings have grown faster than inflation over the last five years, then the necessary increase would be even higher.
Inflation is not the only factor that needs to be considered when reviewing your protection:
• Have your family circumstances changed? A larger family may mean your cover needs to rise, regardless of inflation.
• Has your employment changed? A new job will often mean higher income that needs to be protected. It could also come with different health and pension provisions – which might make a review of these areas a sensible idea.
• Have your borrowings increased? You may have remortgaged or taken out new personal loans. Usually any increase in debt should be matched with increased protection to cover payment in the event of illness or death.
• Can equivalent cover be replaced at less cost or enhanced with no additional outlay? Competition between insurers in the protection market is intense, something that we may be able to exploit to your advantage.
If you want to make sure your protection is up to date, why not contact us for a review? Even if no changes are needed, at least you will know that your protection is at the right level – for now.
For further information
contact Paul Tobias, Trust & Investment Department on
01483 887766.
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Appointments and promotions
Dr Caroline Kerr is the newest member to join the firm's Personal Injury (PI) and Medical Negligence team at Guildford. Having worked for seven years as a qualified doctor in hospitals nationwide, Caroline requalified as a solicitor in 2002, specialising in personal injury and medical negligence claims. She has been particularly successful in representing pedestrians and motorcyclists injured in road traffic accidents. She has also dealt with many "accident at work" claims.
David Whitney has joined the firm as a Litigation Solicitor in the Commercial Business department. David has specialised in civil litigation throughout his career and has experience of a broad range of civil disputes in the High Court, as well as the County Court. He has a keen eye for detail and has dealt with many breach of contract and professional negligence cases with a significant level of success.
Hart Brown is delighted to announce that the following people have been promoted for their hard work and commitment at Hart Brown:
Gary Score and Sharon Powell have been promoted to Associate. Nigel Maud has accepted equity partnership at Hart Brown.
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In Brief
A warm welcome to In Business newsletter. As you will have read, we are delighted to have expanded into South West London, having merged with Ponsford Devenish and opened offices in Wimbledon Village SW19.
This is a time of great opportunity and excitement for Hart Brown as we work with a wide range of clients on a whole range of legal issues, from Commercial Business, to Family, Employment, Personal Injury, Trust and Investment, Residential and Commercial Property matters. Now that we have our London offices as well as those in Surrey, we are even more conveniently located.
Economic Forum news
Taking opportunities to improve is vital for the success of any business - ‘There is only Opportunity’ is the theme of our 4th Annual Hart Brown Economic Forum on 18 June at the University of Surrey. Our speakers are Dr Richard Roberts, Market Analysis Director & Chief Economist of Barclays UK Banking; Mark Hoban, Shadow Minister for the Treasury and Tim Price, Director of Investment at PFP Wealth Management. Further information about this event can be found on our website here or by telephoning our marketing department on 01483 887766.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this newsletter and find it helpful.
Bettina Brueggemann – Managing Partner
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