Huntley Legal's Blog

Do you supply good or services to large companies or LLPs?

This article and the next include what these clients (and you) need to know about the regulations covering payment practice reporting.

Big companies are subject to the regulations and therefore have to make reports to the government. The information they’ll share is informative, publicly available, and can be insightful for you when choosing whether and how to trade with them.

It means you can check out their payment practices and performance, for example:

• Before you take on a new client
• When you’re negotiating a contract with a new or existing client
• To monitor your existing long-term client relationships

You’ll have the ability to ascertain whether their payment performance is acceptable to you, and if it’s holding steady, deteriorating or improving.

You can use these insights to inform how you approach negotiations and set up and manage your contractual payment terms.

I’m sure you’ll agree that, when you’re in negotiations about payment, being well-informed is obviously of significant value.

The specific regulations are ‘Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance (Amendment) 2024, and the 2017 regulations of the same name which they update.

Now that the amendments are in place, I won’t focus on the recent changes in this article. Rather, I will take a quick canter through what the combined regulations amount to today.

AI is quickly infiltrating all kinds of businesses in all kinds of ways, and legal systems worldwide are slowly catching up with the technology.

It’s different in the EU and the UK – but EU law affects UK businesses too.

Remember, it’s judged not by where you are based, but by where the AI output is used. Even if your business is outside the EU, if the output from the system you are using is available or used in the EU, it will be subject to the Act.

This article builds on AI: How new EU law affects businesses in the UK (part 1) and explains some more of the things you need to know.

The law relating to Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing rather differently in the EU and in the UK – but some of the EU changes will affect businesses here, so you do need to be aware of the EU laws as well as the UK laws.

Note that, even without UK legislation that is specifically AI-labelled, there are still legal risks and considerations associated with business use and misuse of AI.

These two articles explain some of the things you need to know.

A new Bill has its second reading before the House of Lords on 19 November 2024, which also needs to be approved by the House of Commons. It’s called the Data (Use & Access) Bill.

The introduction, by the new Government, describes it as reforming data protection in the UK to reduce the burden on business while keeping a high standard of data protection.

It’s also intended to:

• Allow more scope for data to be used in ways that foster economic growth
• Provide legislative changes needed to make further advances towards digitising government functions

This article explores some of the changes to expect, if the Bill is passed in its current form.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) are taking enforcement action against online retailers for mis-marketing, dark patterns and online harms.

This article harks back to a topic I’ve touched on before – here’s what I wrote in August 2023: Do you use high pressure selling techniques online?

Do you really need Heads of Terms when buying or selling a business? This article answers the question.

You probably know there are rules that apply to advertising. But some people seem to think social media is a different environment where different (or no) rules apply. That’s not the case, as you’ll find out in this article.

When it comes to employment law, things are getting rather tasty at the moment! The new Government is currently dealing with various matters, including several left over from the previous Government.

This article builds on the previous one about Changes coming down the pipeline.

There seems to be a sense of ‘reset’ at the moment, with three things colliding at once:

• Our new Government
• That ‘back to school’ perspective (if you have school-age children)
• A post-holiday feeling (even if you don’t)

Parliament resumed on 2 September after the summer break. They go into recess for conference season from 12 September to 7 October, then will be back in action.

You need to be aware of the changes that are coming through. So this article and the next explore a collection of new legislation that’s either being tabled or is soon coming into force.

Obviously, I can’t comment on any announcements that may be in the new budget that’s due at the end of October.

When buying a business asset, in whole or in part, there may well be people issues to consider. The only exception is when all the assets are inanimate!

In most cases, at least some of the people are likely to come over to you along with the business asset. This article covers some of the things you need to think about at a very early stage.

These issues are critical when sizing up the costs, obligations and value of the deal you are proposing to make. Crucially, they even may have a significant impact on whether you do the deal or not.