Woolley & Co E-Zine

Keeping You Up To Date With Changes That Affect Your Business

Welcome to the first of our monthly E-Zines. Everyone knows that the law is constantly changing, but how can you keep up with these changes and make sure your business is prepared? Woolley & Co can help. We’ll be covering topical legal issues and sharing tips and advice on how to avoid falling foul of changes in employment legislation, internet trading rules and the mass of other legal matters.

Andrew Woolley

Andrew Woolley, Principal, Woolley & Co

Employing People on Fixed Term Contracts

Did you know?

Employees on a fixed-term contract of 3 months or less have a right to:
- statutory sick pay
- give and receive 1 week’s notice after they’ve completed 1 months continuous service
Fixed term employees should receive information about any internal vacancies
If a contract lasts for 2 years or more and the contract is not renewed for reasons of redundancy, the employee will have the right to a statutory redundancy payment

If you ignore these employee rights the award for unfair dismissal could be over Ł50,000. Avoid such legal pitfalls, take advantage of the Woolley & Co employment health check – email us now at info@business-lawfirm.co.uk.

What’s in a name?

Remember that buying a domain name (i.e. a web site name) does NOT necessarily mean you can use it as your business name. If it is the same (or very close) to an existing business you may well be stopped from doing so. Find out more about trading on-line click here to visit the Woolley & Co website.

Trading on the Internet

It’s important to understand what constitutes a ‘contract’ on-line. The best way to illustrate this is to look at an example of when things went wrong for an on-line retailer.

Argos posted details on their website for televisions. Instead of a price of Ł399 per item they were shown at Ł3.99. A number of people clicked to buy the televisions, they sent credit card details and of course, to the computer, it all looked good: “1000 units x Ł3.99 = Ł3990 and that is what they’ve paid” so it sent a confirmation, which constituted an acceptance of the buyers offer and created a contract. When Argos later realised their mistake, it was too late.

A cautionary tale. The lessons are simple – check very carefully the information you put on your website and build in some manual checks to any automated process to make sure errors can be spotted and rectified quickly.

To download a more detailed article about Making a Contract on-line, click here to visit the Woolley & Co website.

Look out for our Free Website Health Check offer in next month’s E-Zine.

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

The Woolley & Co E-Zine is sent monthly to subscribers. Feel free to pass on to friends and colleagues. To subscribe, click here.

This E-Zine is mailed to subscribers monthly. If it has been sent to you in error we apologise, if you wish to unsubscribe to the Woolley & Co E-Zine click here.