Setting up a business involves complying with a range of legal requirements. Find out which ones apply to you and your new enterprise.
Every business needs to be aware of its obligations under minimum wage and equal pay laws, as well as recent pensions auto-enrolment changes.
What particular regulations do specific types of business (such as a hotel, or a printer, or a taxi firm) need to follow? We explain some of the key legal issues to consider for 200 types of business.
While poor governance can bring serious legal consequences, the law can also protect business owners and managers and help to prevent conflict.
You must comply with legal restrictions on employees' working hours and time off, or risk claims, enforcement action and even prosecution.
The right employment policies are an essential part of effective staff management. Make sure any policy is clear and well communicated to employees.
Whether you want to raise finance, join forces with someone else, buy or sell a business, it pays to be aware of the legal implications.
While sick employees need to be treated fairly, you need to ensure that 'sickness' is not being used as cover for unauthorised absence.
Marketing matters. Marketing drives sales for businesses of all sizes by ensuring that customers think of their brand when they want to buy.
Most pregnant employees are entitled to maternity leave and maternity pay, while new fathers are entitled to paternity leave and paternity pay.
Commercial disputes can prove time-consuming, stressful and expensive, but having robust legal agreements can help to prevent them from occurring.
As well as undermining morale, illegal discrimination can lead to workplace grievances. Employee discrimination is covered by the Equality Act 2010.
Whether your business owns or rents premises, your legal liabilities can be substantial. Commercial property law is complex, but you can avoid common pitfalls.
Home, remote and lone workers are becoming increasingly commonplace. Key issues include communication and how to manage and motivate people remotely.
With information and sound advice, living up to your legal responsibilities to safeguard your employees, customers and visitors need not be difficult or costly.
The right approach to consulting with and providing information to your employees can improve employee motivation and performance.
As information technology continues to evolve, legislation must also change. It affects everything from data protection and online selling to internet policies for employees.
Disciplinary and grievance issues can be a major burden to employers. Putting in place and following the right procedures is essential.
Following the right dismissal and redundancy procedures helps protect your business and minimise the risk of a legal dispute at tribunal.
Intellectual property (IP) isn't solely relevant to larger businesses or those involved in developing innovative new products: all products have IP.
Employment tribunal claims are a worrying prospect for any employer. A tribunal case is a no-win situation – even if the claim is unjustified.
Knowing how and when you plan to sell or relinquish control of your business can help you to make better decisions and achieve the best possible outcome.
From bereavement, wills, inheritance, separation and divorce to selling a house, personal injury and traffic offences, learn more about your personal legal rights.
Treating customers fairly and honestly is good for your reputation, helping attract new customers and build customer loyalty. It also helps you comply with legal requirements, particularly if you sell to individual consumers rather than business customers.
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations came into force in 2008, replacing detailed rules on trade descriptions and misleading prices with a broader prohibition of unfair trading when you market and sell to consumers.
The regulations set out a general ban on failing to meet the standard of honest market conduct and acting in good faith. The regulations also target misleading marketing practices and aggressive sales techniques. In both cases, unfair trading practices are prohibited if they affect the average consumer's ability to make an informed purchasing decision. The regulations also ban outright 31 specific unfair trading practices such as bogus competitions, pestering consumers and fake closing-down sales.
Bear in mind that Trading Standards can take enforcement action against businesses for unfair trading.
As well as protection from unfair trading, consumers are protected by statutory rights and regulations against unfair contracts. These mean, for example, that goods sold to consumers must be of satisfactory quality and that unfair terms and conditions hidden in the small print of a contract cannot be enforced.
Providing misleading marketing information may also mean that consumers have the right to return products or claim for any loss they have suffered.
There are also regulations covering doorstep selling, distance selling and e-commerce. Among other things, these generally give the consumer the right to cancel an order within an automatic cooling-off period and receive a refund or replacement if goods are faulty. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 extends consumer rights to include content supplied in digital form for example film, music, apps, computer games, ebooks etc.
Prices and labelling are covered by the unfair trading regulations - for example, misleading pricing is prohibited. Retailers must ensure that prices (and if appropriate unit prices) are clearly displayed. Special labelling rules apply to some types of product; you may want to check with your trade association or professional adviser.
Under GDPR, you are also required to protect your customers' personal data. Customers have the right to request a copy of any data you hold about them so you also need to plan how you will process people's data requests, and how you would report a security breach. Reporting any loss of unencrypted personal details is mandatory under GDPR.
Although sales to businesses are not covered by consumer-protection regulations, there are some restrictions on how you can market and sell to business customers.
The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations prohibit misleading advertising. This can include any information you provide during the course of negotiating a sale.
Small business customers also have a limited degree of protection against unfair contract terms being imposed by larger suppliers.
Reviewed by Jean Nweke, solicitor, LawBite