By summer next year (2007) the law will have been passed which bans all smoking in a public enclosed space in England and Wales. This will affect your office reception as well as the local pub. Whilst businesses in Ireland and Scotland have already got used to these changes we still have things to learn.

How will that affect your business? Firstly you will need to make it clear to people that they may not smoke on your premises. So you should:

• Make sure it’s in your employment contacts. There should be no problem you’re only stopping what will be an illegal activity.
• Include a no smoking clause in your subcontractors’ agreements too. Have the legal right to stop their staff smoking on your premises or if “representing” you in some way and also an indemnity for any cost to you, if they ignore that.
• Train your staff in how to deal with people who refuse to stop smoking; you can’t have a system whereby untrained people are expected to deal with potentially aggressive “refusers”.
• Check your insurance policy. Does it cover actions against you in respect of the new smoking law and all these issues?

And it seems that fines for breaching these laws will be very significantly increased; for failing to stop people smoking in a public enclosed space the fine will go up by well over 10 times from £200 to £2,500. Of course for restaurant and pub businesses the implications can be even more wide reaching. So, this needs to be taken seriously.

Following recent cases where massive payouts have been made to spouses after short marriages the Woolley & Co family team are urging business owners to think seriously about a prenuptial agreement.

In a recent case (Miller v Miller) a wife walked away with £5 million from a marriage which lasted only two-and-three-quarter years, produced no children and with the wife not having worked after the first year of marriage.

In less than 10 years, the divorce case law has changed from giving the wife what she needs and only what she needs (no matter the wealth of the husband) to what she might hope and expect to receive even if she has made no notable contribution.

After 1,013 days of marriage, Mrs Miller received a £2.3 million home and a £2.7 million lump sum with some added furniture. The lump sum was expected to earn her a little under £100,000 a year, tax free.

Now a precedent has been set for high-paid husbands to meet the costs of their ex-wives’ expected lifestyle had they stayed together.

But it isn’t only Paul McCartney who should be worried about the consequence of this case. Business owners, in fact anyone with significant assets must protect themselves with a prenuptial agreement.

For family law advice or a fixed fee pre-nuptial agreement visit www.divorce-lawfirm.co.uk or contact one of our family and divorce specialists.

Between now and 17 October, the Government is consulting on the implementation of the European Union (EU) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) mentioned in last month’s featured article.

The rules will come into force on 1 July 2007, and will require affected firms to take responsibility for disposing of electronic goods or contributing towards recycling.

Some useful resources in understanding the directives include:

• DTI FAQs about the WEEE rules, covering issues such as what products the regulations will apply to.
• The Environment Agency's NetRegs legal information tool has a concise and readable summary of what is covered by the WEEE rules, as well as a link to the legal text of the Directive.
• Silicon.com has published a 'cheat sheet' to the WEEE rules in terms of their implication, for PC recycling.

Future ezine’s will cover the conclusion of the consultation. In the meantime for advice on the likely implications for your business contact Stuart McIntosh.

Q - We are about to launch a subscription based online magazine. We have a data protection policy and terms and conditions that we use with our advertisers – but are there any other agreements we should have in place – for example with people who supply articles or with our subscribers?

A - Yes. How can I put this without offending you?! You “have” a data protection policy (I take this as being a privacy policy in accordance with the data protection rules) and you “have” terms and conditions. But are they appropriate and do they protect you as they should? I say this as we invariably see such documents which are plain wrong and sometimes damagingly so.

For now I’ll assume they are very well drafted and cover you as they should. You will also need to have a careful:

• Agreement with your contributors providing for things such as indemnifying you if anything they say is, e.g. libellous or negligent.
• Agreement with your subscribers at least limiting your liability for incorrect information on your site.
• Returns policy if selling to consumers on your site.

If you have a business legal question you would like answered you can Ask A Lawyer via the Woolley & Co website.