The squeeze on incomes which has been facing households for a number of years has led to severe problems in industries that depend on 'discretionary spending', such as the restaurant trade. A recent report by a large firm of chartered…
Customer databases are the lifeblood of many businesses, taking a great deal of time and money to compile. They can, however, be pirated in a matter of seconds and, as one High Court case showed, that can give rise to…
Copyright violation is rife on the Internet, with 'knock-off' copies of branded goods being regularly offered on trading sites and whole websites set up to offer imitations of name brands. The response of several luxury brands that are particularly affected…
The consequences of public authorities failing to observe fairness and transparency rules when conducting contract tendering exercises can be severe indeed. In one High Court case, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) suffered acute embarrassment after applying arbitrary criteria in awarding…
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have a variety of methods, both sophisticated and less so, for uncovering tax evasion and find sectors with substantial cash income, such as takeaway restaurants, a source of easy pickings. As well as having industry…
There are all sorts of things one can do with trading losses under Corporation Tax (CT), but the fall-back position is that losses can be carried forward and set against the next available profits 'of the same trade'. That sounds…
When HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) suspect serious tax evasion, they will normally launch a full-scale tax investigation into the person they suspect. They use many tools in such investigations and one of the more common ones is to compare…
Contract adjudicators provide an essential service but, if they get things wrong, the High Court is always there as a back-stop. In one case on point, a developer won back over £1 million it had been directed to pay to…
When companies hit financial trouble and are at risk of insolvency, directors owe a legal duty to consider the interests of creditors. In one case where that signally did not happen, two directors who credited their loan accounts with large…
If important agreements are not enshrined in professionally drafted contracts, it can be an uphill task to prove that an accord was ever actually reached. That was certainly so in one case concerning the £200 million refinancing of a hotel…