To all our commercial clients and prospective commercial clients,
April is always a busy month in the legal world, as Bills receive Royal Assent to become Acts of Parliament, and this year was no different as twenty new Acts came into force, making a total of thirty in 2017 so far. In addition, what would appear to be the last Spring budget for the foreseeable future has meant that both companies and individuals alike will no doubt be feeling the effects of these new socio-political/socio-economic changes fairly soon, and with an election just around the corner and Brexit negotiations becoming a “brutal reality” (according to The Economist), who knows what the future holds!
At Lewis Nedas Law we always strive to stay on top of our game, and now that some of these changes have started to come into effect, we thought that now would be the time to give a little snapshot of just some of the areas that we know about that might interest you. We’ve also thrown in some recent cases for good measure.
Employment
1) Statutory payments
From April 2017:
- Family; the weekly rate for statutory maternity, paternity and shared parental pay has increased to £140.98 from 2 April 2017 onwards.
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP); has increased to £89.35.
- Statutory Redundancy Pay (SRP); For the purposes of calculating a redundancy payment (age, weekly pay, length of service), ‘weekly pay’ has increased to £489.00.
2) Employment Tribunal Cases
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that a second ACAS “early conciliation certificate” (EC) issued for the same matter as the first will not extend a claimant’s time limit for instituting tribunal proceedings (Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs v Serra Garau UKEAT/0348/16).
3) Employer requirements:
All organisations with a headcount of 250 or more must publish annual figures about its “gender pay gap”, which means the difference between the average earnings (including bonuses) of men and women.
In addition, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has just issued a penalty of £40,000 against an employer for failing to comply with automatic enrolment. It is also threatening criminal prosecutions against employers and has started a “name and shame” campaign. Employers are therefore strongly advised to check their compliance in relation to pension schemes.
Corporate and Commercial
Commercial contracts
1) In Wood v Capita Insurance Services Limited, the Supreme Court has clarified the correct approach to be taken when interpreting commercial contracts and finding a balance between “textual analysis” and “commercial good sense” (as per the tests in Arnold v Britton and Sky v Kookmin Bank respectively).
The correct interpretation will depend on a range of factors, such as:
- words used in the contract;
- the context in which the words are used;
- business commercial sense.
The Supreme Court also added in its judgement that it is “not for the court to remedy a bad bargain” and that the tools for interpretation listed at a) – c) will be used depending on the facts of the case.
Corporate considerations
2.We posted an article last year about the PSC (Persons with Significant Control) regime affecting companies in the UK. In light of the crackdown on organised financial crime, the Government has posted new information on the changes to be made in respect of UK money-laundering measures to help prevent money-laundering and terrorist financing. The legislation, effective 26 June 2017, will change the current requirements concerning PSC information to be registered at Companies House and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changes-to-uk-anti-money-laundering-measures.
Judgements
3. In the High Court, only 35 judgments have been registered against consumers 2017, which is the lowest total number for a single quarter since records began. The average value of a High Court Judgment against a consumer also fell 44 percent year on year to £446,308.
Comparatively, County Court judgments (CCJs) are on the rise, with 298,901 debt judgments registered against consumers in England and Wales in 2017 (an increase of 35%). This is the highest figure for a single quarter in over a decade. This means that, for every 1,000 consumers in the UK, 5.16 now have a CCJ against their name, as opposed to 3.85 in 2016.
Does this mean that consumers and businesses are not being deterred by rising court fees, or is there another reason for the dramatic change in these figures? Watch this space…
Source: The Registry Trust Limited
Professional Negligence and Litigation
Professionals: breathe a (small) sigh of relief when dealing with impulsive clients
1. In a classic example of the UK Legal System Hierarchy at work, the Supreme Court has upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn a lower court judge in BPE Solicitors and another (Respondents) v Hughes-Holland (in substitution for Gabriel) (Appellant) [2017] UKSC 21 on appeal from [2013] EWCA Civ 1513. A link to the judgment can be found at the following address: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2014-0026a-press-summary.pdf
In summary, the highest court in the land found that a professional advisor cannot be liable for a person’s poor commercial decisions. We hope that this gives some reassurance to our professional clients!
Blog by Adam Creasey, Associate Solicitor.