Welcome to our May 2009 newsletter. We hope it is of interest to you. Please do contact us to assist you. We'll try our very best! Regards, Ed Nally (ed.nally@fieldingsporter.co.uk) Your Commercial Team Fieldings Porter |
Hitting the headlines this month are The Budget and Swine Flu, both having their own ramifications on the business world.
Although the news on the budget front isn’t all bad, it is felt by leading business groups and business owners themselves that more could have been done by Alistair Darling to ease the burden of the current crisis.
Addressing short-term issues was supposed to be a priority, so a reduction in business rates is highly noticeable by its absence. However, if your company is making a loss, then you will welcome the initiative running until November 2010 that allows you to claim back taxes paid on profits from the last three years. And the new credit insurance scheme to help protect against late payment will provide cover for six months if your current private cover is reduced, so that’s good news.
The H1N1 Virus, ‘Swine Flu’, is exceptionally worrying, not least for business owners. Various organisations have issued advice to help companies cope with a pandemic, should one occur. Business Link recommends e-mailing staff the NHS leaflet on Swine Flu and avoiding non-essential travel abroad. BERR says that ‘businesses should plan for a possible outbreak as they do all health and safety issues’ and the Cabinet Office has released a checklist which suggests: ‘firms should identify which parts of their business are critical and consider having a pool of workers who could complete such tasks if necessary, such as contractors of retirees’. Preparation is vital in financial terms as well as health and safety; for detailed advice follow these links:
- Business link advice: keeping business going in case of a crisis
- Cabinet Office leaflet: Introductory advice to staff on planning for pandemic influenza
- Cabinet Office checklist
- Department of Health's swine flu website
- Now on to this month's Firm news and reports from the legal world.
Legal News
If your company meets two of these criteria – it has fewer than ten employees, an annual turnover under €1 million and/or a balance sheet total under €500,000 – then good news is on the horizon because The European Commission proposes to exempt small companies from the EU accounting directives which are renowned for creating great complexity. Read the full article on our website for further information on this welcome red tape-cutting news.
As an employer you must comply with current Health & Safety regulations, or risk prosecution. Under a recent House of Lords ruling, employers may be prosecuted over accidental death at work, even if no specific breach of health and safety legislation can be identified as the cause. In the case of Shaun Riley detailed on our website this month, investigations revealed numerous health and safety failings at the workplace where he died, but because no one witnessed the accident the defendants argued they could not be held liable for the death. However, the prosecution argued it was not necessary to show precise health and safety failings and that it was enough to show that the general state of the workplace led to a risk of injury. The House of Lords accepted this argument. For specialist advice on health and safety, contact us.
A recent Court of Appeal decision brings unwelcome news for landlords with insolvent tenants. If, as a landlord, your borrowings against your let property are large, then the loss of a secure lease, even if it is replaced by a similar licence income courtesy of the tenant’s administrators, could mean a breach of borrowing covenants. One case reported on our website this month saw the landlord in such a situation follow its tenant into administration after having his rental income switched to a licence fee. For professional landlord and tenant advice, contact us.
Useful Bit at the End - Using Google Alerts
Have you tried using Google Alerts yet? Go to http://www.google.com/alerts to try it out. It allows you to keep track of sites that Google is indexing and track, for example, names of clients, competitors or topics of interest. Whenever Google indexes new websites that contain phrases matching your selected phrases, it will alert. You can set the alert schedule e.g. once per day, week etc.
Website of the Month
Right, hands up those of you that have checked out your house, office or local pub using this latest addition to the Google application empire? Fascinating isn’t it and practical too, quite reassuring being able to make mental note of ‘real’ landmarks when you’re planning your journey. Long gone are the days of badly hand drawn location maps so if you’re in one of the areas Google have already snapped up why not go that extra mile and put a link on your ‘how to find us’ page? More info at http://maps.google.co.uk/help/maps/streetview/index.html
