Following a recent First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) decision, owner-managed businesses may need to review arrangements for shifting income from higher rate taxpaying shareholders to their lower rate taxpaying spouses if those arrangements involve dividend waivers. The tribunal held that dividend…
Landowners looking to let a field for solar may be interested in understanding how renewable energy developers generate income. They will usually have two income streams: income from the sale of the electricity generated, and a subsidy paid by the…
What is the issue? Flooding is a growing risk. Aside from physical damage caused by floods, if a property is at risk of flooding it may be difficult to: obtain a mortgage obtain suitable insurance cover, or sell the property. This…
A building company is facing up to a damages bill of almost £600,000 after a simple error by one of its employees in failing to extend the hydraulic feet of a mobile crane resulted in an industrial accident that caused…
Where activities are outsourced, or where there is a change in contractor providing the activities, or where outsourced activities are brought back in-house, then the employment of anyone within an organised grouping of employees carrying out those activities transfers automatically…
Since the House of Lords' decision in Aston Cantlow v Wallbank and another [2003] UKHL 37 chancel repair liability has earned notoriety amongst conveyancing practitioners. In that case, a land owner was faced with a claim from his local parochial…
The Court of Appeal has ordered a defendant to disclose e-mails to the claimant company on the basis of their former relationship as agent and principal. The court confirmed that the principal was entitled to require production by the agent…
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined the Bank of Scotland plc £75,000 for a serious breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. The ICO found that, over a four-year period, the bank repeatedly sent faxes containing customers' personal data…
Businesses faced with employees making repeated unsubstantiated complaints of discrimination will have to think twice before dismissing them following a Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision. The EAT held that the dismissal of an employee who brought a series of grievances…
A recent Court of Appeal judgment, dealing with a situation where a party has suspended or delayed compliance with its contractual obligations, is likely to be of interest to many businesses. The economic downturn has made this scenario increasingly common…
