Latest News within Running a Business

Running a business can be tough at the best of times, but things can feel particularly fraught when the unexpected hits.
Things out of your control can have a detrimental effect to your success and although you may not want to think of the worst-case scenario – including extreme flooding, as has been the case in recent weeks across North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire – planning for every eventuality could help keep disruption to a minimum and allow you to resume operations sooner rather than later.
Here, our Business Services Solicitor, Ian Osborn, talks about what measures you should put in place to ensure that your business is protected if it is affected by flooding in the future.

When we leave the European Union we will also leave the EU customs union. The question we all want to know the answer to is ‘what does that mean for me?’

After appearing as experts on a string of hit TV shows, hair stylist Danny Richardson and make-up artist Maxine Holland have teamed up to launch an innovative new salon in Sheffield – Black Cactus – designed to reinvent their clients’ approach to body confidence.

Once upon a time, commercial air travel was one of the ultimate luxuries reserved for the rich, famous and powerful, primarily because of the expense involved in doing so. The world where that was true now feels like one from a very long time ago, with ever-advancing technology making flying cheaper and easier and the rise of budget airlines making catching a plane something that everyone can enjoy – or not, as the case may be. With flight delays and cancellations a common occurrence, heightened security measures leading to longer waiting times to board, and incidents such as the violent removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight in April this year, commercial air travel has not only lost its glamour, but is now something many passengers are coming to dread.

If you’re a business owner outside the construction industry, then it’s quite likely that your knowledge of the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) is limited, and understandably so.

The Court of Appeal recently found that an employer was not liable for the severe injuries caused by an employee who, while at work and apparently as a prank, had put highly inflammable thinning agent on to the clothes of a workmate and ignited them.

The courts recently ruled that when the directors of a company involved that company in fraudulent transactions, the company was not barred from making claims against the directors and their accessories for the losses caused by the directors’ breach of fiduciary duty.

Katie Ash, Head of Employment Law at Banner Jones Solicitors, goes through some of the changes which may effect you in the coming months.

A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has established that holiday pay must take into account ‘usual’ overtime and other supplements.

In light of recently published research that the number of regular e-cigarette smokers in the UK is now over two million, employers are advised to formulate their own policy in relation to the practice of “vaping” in the office. Trevor Hughes, Employment law specialist at Banner Jones says, “e-cigarettes are not covered by the current legislation on smoking in the office and this creates a real dilemma for employers”.

Banner Jones help X-Cel Superturn acquire Colson Industries in £1.75m deal.

Sheffield-based X-Cel Superturn (GB) Ltd, which manufactures precision engineered components for the oil and gas sector, has acquired fellow Yorkshire business Colson Industries in a £1.75 million deal.

X-Cel Superturn was founded in 1984 by current Managing Director Andrew Taylor as Sheffield Superturn to manufacture small to medium CNC machined parts. The company has expanded through a combination of organic growth and acquisition and this year expects to grow turnover from £24 million to £30 million, independent of the Colson acquisition. It employs 130 people across its sites in Sheffield, Rotherham and Batley.

X-Cel Superturn plans to quadruple sales at Colson Industries, from £2.5 million to £10 million over the next two years, adding 25 employees over the period to bring staff numbers up to 65. Colson Industries will now act as a 100% subsidiary of X-Cel Superturn.

If you run a business with employees, a recent case at the Tax Tribunal has underlined the need for you to maintain a log of the dates that you send your PAYE payments to the Revenue. So found a company in a recent case where they challenged an HMRC late-payments fine of £25,000.

The director of a company who decided to defend his company himself against a copyright infringement claim has found that failing to take legal advice early on in the proceedings has cost his company dear.

The company had reproduced more than 100 articles from a commercial vendor of such material on its own website, representing the content as having been written by people connected with the company

The importance of making full disclosure of relevant facts when negotiating is hard to over-emphasise, as a recent case shows.

The case arose when a company made an agreement to sell a subsidiary to another company. As is normally the case when a business is offered for sale, a pre-sale memorandum was prepared, outlining key information about the company being sold, and this was circulated to potential buyers.

When you are required to transfer a property once it is sold or at the end of the lease, you are required to give the new occupant vacant possession.

This is a strict requirement, meaning that the property must be capable of being occupied immediately. As such, it must be empty of people and the tenant’s belongings.

In a recent case, a tenant who was vacating a let property as a result of the termination of the tenancy wanted to continue to occupy the property for a few days after the break date in order to complete works necessary to comply with its repairing obligations under the lease.

The tenant requested the landlord’s permission, but there was no response to the request. The tenant kept the premises secure but retained the keys to the property after the break date.