Are your contracts protecting your business?

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Contracts serve as the backbone of any business, outlining agreements, expectations, and legal obligations between the parties involved. Navigating the intricate landscape of contract law is crucial for business owners to safeguard their interests and maintain healthy professional relationships. In this blog, we’ll explore the key considerations to keep in mind when dealing with contracts.

  1. Clear and concise terms:

A well drafted contract begins with clear and concise terms. It should define each party’s responsibilities, the scope of work, payment terms and any specific deliverables. Ambiguities here can lead to misunderstandings and potential disputes down the line. Take scope of work, for example. You’ll want to make sure the language used to describe the work isn’t too vague, is comprehensive, takes into account any assumptions etc.

  • Mutual Understanding:

Communication is key in contract negotiations. It’s important to ensure all parties have a clear and mutual understanding of the terms. This can be done through thorough discussions, where each party can express their expectations and concerns. Consider a scenario where a party agrees to a contract term without a complete understanding of its implications. This lack of understanding can lead to significant challenges and consequences down the line. For example, what if you agree to a broadly worded indemnification clause? The risks of this would be that you would assume responsibility for a wide range of claims, liabilities, damages and expenses, even those unrelated to your actions or negligence. A mistake like this could expose your business to excessive financial and legal risks, and you may be obligated to indemnify the other party for events beyond your control of scope of responsibility!

  • Consideration of relevant laws and regulations:

Different industries might have specific laws that may impact a contract. You might not be aware of these legal nuances, but as lawyers, it’s our job to understand these and how the specific laws may impact your contract. This could include compliance with consumer protection laws, industry-specific regulations, and more.

  • Performance metrics and milestones:

Clearly outline performance metrics and milestones within the contract. This not only provides a roadmap for the project but also allows for measurable assessments for each party’s performance.

  • Termination clauses:

Plan for the unexpected by including termination clauses. Define the conditions under which each party can terminate the contract, ensuring a fair and legal process for both sides.

  • Dispute Resolution mechanisms:

In the event of a dispute, having a clear mechanism for resolution can save time and resources. Consider including arbitration or mediation clauses to handle disagreements outside of the courtroom.

  • Compliance with changes

Businesses and industries are dynamic, and contracts should be adaptable. Include provisions that allow for modifications in the agreement to accommodate changes in circumstances or regulations.

  • Confidentiality and non-disclosure:

If your business has sensitive information that you do not want to be made public, ensure that confidentiality and non-disclosure clauses are in place to protect your proprietary data and trade secrets. A lawyer can help you keep track of all the important information and documents.

  • Document everything!

Maintain thorough records throughout the contract lifecycle. This includes emails, meeting minutes, and any amendments to the original agreement. These documents can be invaluable in case of a dispute.

Navigating contract law requires attention to detail, legal expertise, and effective communication. By working with a lawyer who can invest time and resources into crafting and understanding your contracts and business, businesses can build a solid foundation for successful collaborations while minimising legal risks. Remember, a well-structured, balanced contract not only protects your interests but also fosters trust and reliability in your business relationships.

Contact our team for more information.

What is a Joint Venture Agreement?

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A Joint Venture Agreement (JVA), is an agreement put in place between two or more businesses at the outset of a business venture together.  The purpose of the agreement is to set out each party’s obligations and duties during the venture, this can either be a one-off specific project or an ongoing one. A joint venture allows both businesses to keep their own corporate identities and incorporate a separate legal entity for the venture, though if the parties wish, they can opt to a purely contractual joint venture. Either way, before kicking off the process, there are various things that the contracting parties should consider:

  • Purpose of the agreement and scope of the work

An agreement should set out the objectives of the joint venture, how long it is expected to last and which tasks and responsibilities fall to each party. 

  • Funding

A joint venture often means both parties will share the costs.  The contracting businesses should discuss what costs are likely to be incurred and who will be responsible for paying for any equipment, materials or other fees. Each company is likely to own different assets as part of the joint venture and documenting who owns what will help avoid conflict when the venture comes to an end.

  • Profits

It should be decided early on whether profits will be split equally or if each company receives profits for specific pieces of work.

  • Confidentiality

In setting up and running a joint venture, it is likely that the companies will need to disclose confidential information about their individual businesses to each other.  Setting out any confidentiality provisions will minimise the risk of confidential information being used by the other party if things go wrong or once the joint venture comes to an end.

What are the benefits of joint venture agreements?

  • Teaming up with another business can mean access to better resources
  • The risk and cost are split between the parties to the agreement
  • New projects can be funded by both parties which may prevent the need to find investors
  • If the venture is successful, the contracting parties share profits

Are there any negatives?

  • It may restrict the focus on a party’s individual business if they’re focussing on the joint venture
  • Although parties may split profits, there is likely to be varying levels of involvement which may mean that one party has less control over the venture
  • Disputes may occur if the agreement isn’t clear from the outset or if parties have different ways of doing things.

In conclusion, a well-structured joint venture agreement serves as the cornerstone for successful collaborations between businesses. The intricacies involved in such agreements necessitate careful consideration of legal as well as financial and operational aspects.

If you have any questions, please feel free to speak to a member of our legal team for more information.

Tend Legal, London

How will ChatGPT impact the work we do as lawyers?

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This is the burning question on all our minds, so we asked ChatGPT how it ‘thinks’ it will impact the work we do.

Here’s what ChatGPT said:

‘Chat GPT has the potential to impact the work of lawyers in several ways:

  1. Legal research: Lawyers spend a significant amount of time conducting legal research to find relevant case law, statutes, regulations, and legal precedents. Chat GPT can assist in this process by providing quick access to vast amounts of legal information. Lawyers can ask questions in natural language and receive relevant legal information, which can help streamline the research process and save time.
  2. Document drafting: Lawyers often need to draft various legal documents, including contracts, agreements, pleadings, and letters. Chat GPT can aid in this task by providing suggestions, templates, and examples. Lawyers can interact with the model to generate initial drafts or review and edit existing documents, leveraging its language generation capabilities to improve efficiency and accuracy.
  3. Legal advice and client communication: Chat GPT can provide lawyers with a tool to communicate with clients, answering general legal questions or providing preliminary advice. While it’s important to note that AI models cannot replace the expertise and nuanced judgment of human lawyers, they can offer initial guidance and help clients understand legal concepts in a more accessible way.
  4. Due diligence and contract analysis: Lawyers often conduct due diligence investigations and review contracts to identify risks, obligations, and legal implications. Chat GPT can assist by analyzing contracts and highlighting key provisions, potential issues, or legal considerations. It can aid lawyers in efficiently reviewing large volumes of documents, extracting relevant information, and identifying potential red flags.
  5. Training and professional development: Chat GPT can serve as a valuable educational tool for law students, junior associates, and even experienced lawyers. It can provide interactive learning experiences, offer hypothetical scenarios for legal analysis, and assist in practicing legal arguments or negotiation techniques. This can contribute to ongoing professional development and legal knowledge enhancement.

While Chat GPT can offer significant benefits to lawyers, it’s important to note that it should be used as a tool to augment our work, rather than replace human judgment and legal expertise. Ethical considerations, data security, and the need for human oversight remain crucial aspects of integrating AI into the legal profession.

In short, ChatGPT doesn’t think it will replace lawyers (yet!), rather it will be used as a tool to improve the way we work and the quality of our output (phew!). Currently, it is far from perfect and its responses can be problematic at times, though it is available for free and always learning. Although it is trained on large amounts of data, we have to ask ourselves whether we can be confident that the information it churns out is the most up-to-date or relevant to the legal issue.

In addition, as lawyers, the work we do and the advice we give is largely dependent on our own experiences and personal judgement, which is what helps us deliver the best possible service and advice to our clients. As it stands, ChatGPT cannot replicate our knowledge, personal/ethical/moral judgement and experiences, and therefore its uses are currently limited. Crucially, it also lacks the ability to understand the nuances of our client’s businesses and the industries in which our clients operate. That’s not to suggest it isn’t and won’t be useful as there is very little doubt that it will continue to enhance the efficiencies and effectiveness of the tasks we perform over time, helping to compliment the work we do as legal professionals and not replace us entirely.

The emergence of tools like ChatGPT makes legal services a really exciting space to be. It’s likely we will see a range of tools that will support us to be more efficient and we’re interested to see how the technology develops over the coming months and years.

Tend Legal

London

What’s a data breach and how can your company avoid them?

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Data breaches occur when sensitive personal information falls into the wrong hands. GDPR imposes an obligation on all organisations to report any data breaches within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach.

To do this, organisations will need to have appropriate processes in place to make sure that data breaches are detected, reported and that there is an appropriate internal procedure in place.

Whatever your business, it is important that you and your staff are able to recognise when a data breach occurs and what measures you need to take to respond to a breach.

Common types of data breaches

The are several ways that a data breach can occur but most are either a result of human error or having insufficient security measures in place. Some of the most common data breaches include:

  • Loss or theft of physical files or electronic devices containing personal information;
  • Sending emails or attachments to an incorrect recipient;
  • Unauthorised third parties accessing information; or
  • Employees stealing client information for personal use, for example if a disgruntled employee is looking to leave a company and poach clients.

How can data breaches be prevented?

  • Risk assessments – consider how data is backed up and accessed by employees.  If employees are working from home, accessing data on remote systems or taking sensitive data home with them, the documents should be recorded and kept track of. Appropriate policies and procedures should be put in place to make sure sensitive data is protected.
  • Having a procedure in place to deal with any data breaches that come up

If a data breach does happen, it can’t just be ignored.  Having a plan in place for when data breaches do occur will mean that, in most cases, they can be dealt with both quickly and consistently. It will need to be assessed whether the breach needs to be reported to the ICO or if the data subject needs to be informed of the breach.

  • Staff training

Training your staff and making sure they are aware of what a data breach is and how they occur will help to ensure that any data breaches are prevented and reported.  It is also important to make sure your employees know what the procedure is for reporting data breaches, who they should be reported to and what the implications of a data breach may be.

  • Make sure any third parties you’re dealing with have adequate systems to protect company or customer data

If you’re dealing with any third parties who are processing customer or staff data, you should make sure that they have systems in place to secure and protect the data you’re providing to them.

  • Learn from mistakes

If you do have a data breach, determining how it occurred can help you put measures in place to prevent the same thing from happening twice. This may include upgrading security systems or potentially carrying out additional training for staff.

Tend Legal, London

Indirect discrimination in the workplace: what is it and when is it acceptable?

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Indirect discrimination takes place when an employer applies a provision, criteria or practice (PCP) which puts people with a particular protected characteristic at a disadvantage in comparison to someone without that characteristic.

In most cases, employers would consider a consistent approach and blanket policies to be a good thing, however, this isn’t always the case.  If an employer introduces a PCP that puts people with a protected characteristic at a disadvantage, they may risk ending up on the other side of a discrimination claim.

The Equality Act 2010 sets out nine protected characteristics which are:-

  • Age
  • Disability
  • Gender reassignment
  • Marriage and civil partnership
  • Pregnancy and maternity
  • Race
  • Religion or belief
  • Sex
  • Sexual orientation

For indirect discrimination to occur, the PCP will have a detrimental effect on anyone with a particular characteristic, it differs from direct discrimination which only covers circumstances where something is applied to a particular person with a protected characteristic.

For example, if an employer insisted that a female employee had to work a full 9:00 to 17:00 day, this could be directly discriminatory if male employees were able to work flexible or reduced hours. However, if the employer introduced a blanket policy that all employees had to work a full 9:00 to 17:00 day, this would be indirectly discriminatory against women who are likely to have more childcare responsibilities than men which may prevent them from being able to work a full week. The important distinction is whether or not the PCP is something that is applied to all staff.

In order to pursue an indirect discrimination claim, the employee will need to be able to prove that:

  • the PCP is unfair to both them and other people who share the protected characteristic; and
  • it puts them at a disadvantage in comparison to those that don’t have the protected characteristic.

In some circumstances, indirect discrimination can be justified by an employer where they can show that there is a legitimate business reason for the policy. This may include where it is a necessary requirement for the job or if it is necessary to ensure the employees health and safety.

Think about the roles of policeman or firefighters, in applying for these roles candidates will go through a fitness test to make sure they’re suitable for the job.  In theory, this could be indirectly discriminatory as disabled or older candidates will likely be at a disadvantage.  However, as these are jobs that can be strenuous and require good physical health, there is a legitimate reason for them.

On the other hand, if a fitness test was introduced for an office based role, an employer is very unlikely to have a legitimate reason for doing this and an employee would probably be successful in claiming indirect discrimination.

Key points to consider

  • Is the discriminatory act something which is applied to all staff;
  • Does it put people with a particular protected characteristic at a disadvantage; and
  • Is there a legitimate reason for the discriminatory act?

Tend Legal, London

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TUPE 101

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re looking to buy or sell a business (that’s the company’s assets, not shares) or you’re outsourcing or transferring your services out of your business to a freelancer or contractor, you may find yourself in a TUPE situation.

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What’s TUPE?

TUPE is an acronym for Transfer of Undertaking and Protection of Employment Regulations, and it exists to protect employees where their employment transfers from one employer to another. In short, TUPE exists so that the liability of the old employer can be transferred to the new employer, with continuity of employment maintained for affected employees. TUPE legislation derives from an EU Directive and as far as we know, it looks like the rules are staying put.

Employees can also rely on TUPE to protect them from being dismissed. If employees are dismissed before or after a TUPE transfer, they may have been unfairly dismissed. This doesn’t apply to all dismissals, but TUPE does make it hard for employers to follow a ‘fair’ procedure if there is any kind of business transfer. Dismissal could also be unfair if the reason for the dismissal is the transfer itself, unless there is an economic, technical or organisational reason entailing changes in the workforce.

Things that need to be done

First things first, decide which employees will transfer to the new employer. This is usually the moment you start thinking about their roles and the kind of duties carried on by them.

Before a transfer takes place, the purchaser of the business needs to be provided with details about the employees that are being taken on, though wherever possible, personal information should be anonymised to comply with the Data Protection Act:

  • Name of employee
  • Employee age
  • Employment particulars i.e., salary, hours, holidays etc
  • Details of any disciplinary action taken against the employee in the last 2 years
  • Any grievance action raised by the employee in the last 2 years
  • Details of any legal action (in court or an employment tribunal) bought against the employer by an employee in the last 2 years and information about any potential legal action

An employer must also let the purchaser know what they plan to do with the employees i.e., transferring them etc. This disclosure of information must happen. If it doesn’t, employers could face penalties.

Next, you’ll need to ensure you follow a fair consultation process with employees who are affected by the TUPE transfer, so everyone is in the loop about what’s going on and employees can share their concerns with you.  The consultation requirements will depend on the number of employees involved in the potential transfer.

What happens if you don’t follow the process?

Technically, as liabilities pass from the old employer to the new employer, employees would take up any issues with the new employer. However, you can agree to divvy up the liabilities contractually so that the old employer is liable for any failure on their part that has been pre-agreed in advance.

As with all things, planning is the key to getting things right. If you’re selling up or outsourcing work away from employees, it’s always recommended that you think about how the TUPE rules might apply and get legal advice early on in the process.

Tend Legal, London

Written by Neelam Narshi

Is Modern Slavery really an issue for your business?

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Slavery is a modern world problem and can take many forms, including human trafficking and forced labour. According to a recent report carried out by the International Labour Organisation, Walk Free and IOM UN Migration (https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_norm/—ipec/documents/publication/wcms_854733.pdf), there were an estimated 50 million people working against their will or in a marriage they were forced into in 2021. According to the report, that’s roughly 1 in 150 people in the world. Approximately a quarter of all slavery victims are children and millions are exploited by the private economy and state authorities.

The reality is modern slavery exists everywhere – from beauty salons to factory workers, nannies to people who make our clothes and fancy living room rugs, your supply chains and your employees. The list goes on.

What’s the law on slavery in the UK?

The legislation in this area is the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the ‘Act’).  The Act requires any organisation in any part of a group structure to comply with the reporting provisions of the Act if they:

  • are a body corporate or a partnership, wherever incorporated
  • carry on a business, or part of a business, in the UK
  • supply goods or services
  • have an annual turnover of £36m or more

What are businesses required to do to comply with the Act?

If your business meets the criteria above, then you are required to publicly report by publishing a statement on your website on the steps your business is taking to prevent modern slavery in your operations and supply chains and to keep this updated annually.

Rather confusingly, the Act also says that you can publish a statement saying that your business has taken no such steps, though an independent review conducted by the Secretary of State of the Act in December 2021 (Independent review of the Modern Slavery Act: final report (accessible version) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) suggests that businesses should not be able to state that they have taken no steps to address modern slavery in their supply chains.

What may you include in the statement?

That’s right. The question above asks what ‘may’ you include and not what ‘must’ or ‘should’ you include. That’s because the legislation at clause 54(5) which deals with transparency in your supply chains gives guidance on the kinds of things you might want to think about but does not make any of the information mandatory to include. Here’s what the Act says about what you may want to include in the statement:

Information about;

  • the organisation’s structure, its business and its supply chains;
  • its policies in relation to slavery and human trafficking;
  • its due diligence processes in relation to slavery and human trafficking in its business and supply chains;
  • the parts of its business and supply chains where there is a risk of slavery and human trafficking taking place, and the steps it has taken to assess and manage that risk;
  • its effectiveness in ensuring that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in its business or supply chains, measured against such performance indicators as it considers appropriate
  • the training about slavery and human trafficking available to its staff.

It seems the legislation is not concerned about the quality of statements as it does not mandate the inclusion of the above a-f, but the government have responded recognising that many organisations have published ‘poor quality’ statements which contain little or not evidence of the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in their operations and supply chains.  The Secretary of State report goes further and says that the legislation should be amended to require companies to consider the entirety of their supply chains in respect of modern slavery. If a company has not done so, it should be required to explain why it has not and what steps it is going to take in the future. There is expected to be more legislation in this area to clarify things for businesses but in the meantime, our recommendation is to ensure you look at points a-f above, and consider your processes for due diligence, monitoring and reporting of modern slavery in your supply chains and with your employees.

What should you do if you meet the criteria but do not have a statement currently or if you want to publish a statement regardless of whether you meet the criteria or not?

As lawyers we can’t tell you what processes to implement but we can tell you how to comply with the legislation. If you want to engage in a meaningful way with the issue, our suggestions would be:

  • to think about which suppliers you work with and your employment practices and where there may be risks of modern slavery
  • to do your due diligence i.e., carrying out site visits with suppliers, asking to see suppliers’ modern slavery policies and what they are doing to address modern slavery (this should not simply be a ‘tick box’ exercise but it would likely require a deep dig into your supply chains etc)
  • to outline your monitoring processes i.e., you might wish to identify ‘high risk’ countries and focus on those
  • to work out your processes in the event you discover an issue in your supply chains, hiring processes etc
  • to think about how reporting works i.e., if employees want to report any issues, for example.
  • to engage all parts of your business and for everyone to take collective responsibility in working out the processes.

Once you have thought about the above, we’d be happy to have a chat with you to discuss how to put this into a formal statement to publish on your website. In the meantime, we’re here if you have any questions.

Neelam Narshi, Tend Legal, London.

What is customer experience?

We’re not marketeers but customer experience (CX) is an area that we’re pretty focused on. We know it’s important in business – whatever your business does. That’s why we thought it would be interesting to share some of what we’ve learned along the way in the hope that it helps you.

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Asking Google what customer experience is brings up about 204,000,000 results. Results include articles, research, strategies, reports…..the list goes on. As it turns out, the definition is pretty broad. Here are just a few examples:

‘Customer experience is the impression your customers have of your brand as a whole, throughout all aspects of the buyer’s journey.’

‘Customer experience, also known as cx, is your customers’ holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand.’

‘Customer experience is the internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company.’

‘Customer experience is a cognitive, affective, sensory and behavioural consumer response during all stages of the consumption process.’

‘CX refers to how a business engages with its customers at every point of their buying journey’

Customer experience (CX) is absolutely all of those things, but to put it simply: It’s how your brand makes people feel. We all know that emotions, not rationale, leads decision-making and emotional CX is grounded in how a brand’s interactions make people feel. That’s why frustrated customers are quick to leave bad reviews and happy customers remember to recommend to others. As it turns out, Maya Angelou’s well- known quote ‘people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but they will never forget how you made them feel’ is pretty spot on. You’re more likely to forget what it was that triggered the emotion (i.e., content or a poor customer journey) than the actual emotion itself. And, emotions stick! Each and every one of us are wired to pay attention to our emotions and, as it happens, we do!

The goal with any CX strategy is to produce great experiences across the entire customer journey and to fully identify and analyse key areas where CX could really be improved. That applies to any industry and it’s important for our firm too.

Happy customers stick around. They don’t look elsewhere and they’re likely to notice you’ve gone if one day you were to suddenly disappear. Equally, new customers are more likely to choose you over a competitor. The reality is that there is no straightforward solution that can be implemented for immediate results. It’s a hard slog and one that requires long term commitment (and investment) from leaders and employees alike – everyone should be on board. Customer feedback and analysis, journey mapping and ideating are all part of the process but the rewards, if you get it right, could be huge!

At Tend Legal, we’re passionate about getting it right for our customers. We take time to listen to feedback and implement ideas and strategies that put our customers at the heart of our decision making. We like to think we’re great at communicating with our customers and that’s the first and most important step in our CX strategy, but it doesn’t end there. The way our customers feel about their experience with us is the single most important thing and our team go out of their way to ensure our customers are always happy.

We hope this blog serves as a nice reminder that we’re just as focused on our customers, as our customers are focused on theirs.

Neelam Narshi, Tend Legal, London

How to remove a director, the right way

You’re facing a dilemma:

One of the directors in your business isn’t quite pulling their weight or you’ve had a bit of a disagreement. The relationship isn’t really working and keeping the director on might cause irreparable damage to your business and potentially, the people within it. Although you’ve tried to talk things through, he or she refuses to resign. The situation is complex – the director is also a shareholder in the company.

What should you do?

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Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

The decision is easy, right? All you have to do is remove the director at Companies House. Well yes, that will need to be done, but that’s the last piece of the jigsaw. There’s a whole lot more to do before you get to that.

The first thing to know is that directors don’t automatically qualify as employees of a company and so usually, they are employed under a contract to ensure this is the case. Your go to document to check the detail relating to termination should be the Directors Service Agreement (it’s a form of employment contract), which will also contain salary information, details on duties, responsibilities etc. If there is no contract or the contract makes no mention of what to do in the event you wish to terminate the directors’ employment, you should consult a lawyer to help you navigate the matter. Not following the correct process here could give rise to a potential unfair dismissal claim if the  dismissal was not for a potentially fair reason and/or no fair procedure was followed before dismissing and if the director has been employed for more than two years.

The next step is for you to consult your company’s Articles of Association to understand the key circumstances under which a director can be removed. The Articles will provide further procedural information including how a director can be removed i.e., by unanimous decision. If the Articles make no mention of this, it is possible under law for the shareholders to remove the director from his or her position by an ordinary resolution of members, a decision which will have to be made in a general meeting of shareholders by a simple majority i.e., requiring more than 50% of the votes.

We don’t like to bore you with the provisions, but the Companies Act does say you’ve got to follow a few rules to remove a director. If you don’t, it could render the resolution invalid. One of the most important parts of the legislation in this area is to ensure you provide special notice to the company detailing the shareholder’s intention to propose the resolution at least 28 days before the general meeting. You’ll also have to let the director know so that they can attend the meeting to negotiate their position, if they wish to.

If the director is a shareholder, you should also take a look at your Shareholders’ Agreement, which may include provisions dealing with decision making and removal of directors. It should also include details of how the shares should be dealt with after the director has been removed.

If you’ve reached a majority decision and assuming all the relevant procedures and requirements have been followed, the next step would be for you to remove the directors’ details from your Companies House listing. You definitely shouldn’t take this step first. It’s super important to work through the Directors’ Service Agreement, Articles and Shareholders Agreement before making any changes at Companies House – they’re ultimately the key documents that govern how you run and protect your business and of course, how you do things the right way.

Neelam Narshi

Tend Legal, London

Legal Subscriptions. The ideal solution for your business?

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If you’re in business, it’s likely that you could find yourself forking out for legal bills when you’re least expecting them. You might need help with getting your employment practices right and keeping them that way or alternatively, supplier or sales contracts that need reviewing or drafting on a regular basis. If so, a legal subscription for your business can make it affordable for you to get the right legal advice whenever you need it. That’s the key – whenever you need it. No need to shop around for quotes or researching the best lawyers for the job. The best bit – our packages are Netflix style ‘all you can eat’ packages – so you can make use of our services whenever you like.

We are right there on hand, for a fixed monthly fee to help you with whatever you need. We’re also doing away with charging by the hour, to give you more certainty on the cost of good quality, affordable legal help.

What could a legal subscription include?

There are a lot of things a legal subscription could include, but you might not necessarily need it all. Our subscription packages are tailored specifically to your needs, so our first step is always to learn more about your business and how it works before we plan ahead.

The good news is that our subscriptions include any of the areas of law we cover. You can check out the full list of areas here: https://tend.legal/expertise/. Chat with one of our team to learn more.

Document Review

All of our subscription clients ask us to review their legal contracts on a regular basis. It’s a big part of what we do. Our legal team can help review all types of legal agreements and contracts, for example, employee contracts right through to more complex investor agreements.

Contract Negotiation

As part of a subscription plan, we’re always happy working with third parties, often lawyers on the other side of a transaction to negotiate the terms of an agreement.  Whether it’s a contract drafted by us or the lawyers on the other side, it’s important that the contract is fair and balanced. Some of the core things to consider here include;

  • What are the parties working to achieve?
  • Is the agreement clear?
  • Are your rights clearly reflected in the agreement?
  • Is the agreement fair and balanced, to reduce the length of time the negotiation will take?
  • Will there by other things to consider i.e., if the businesses operate globally or data protection?

Advice whenever you need it

Most of our customers choose us because they know we’ll be there when they need us, allowing them to get on with running their business. Ask us any legal question and we’ll find the answer. Better still, we use Slack and Teams to ‘chat’ with our clients on a regular basis.

Drafting new agreements

There will be a range of issues that require drafting of contracts and letters. Whether that’s a letter to chase an unpaid debt or the drafting of a funding agreement, we can help you avoid any issues in the future. We’ll make sure all your agreements are structured and drafted for success.

Reviewing your business/growth plans

Not all of the work a lawyer will do will be focused on helping you to navigate the daily legal issues and problems you might face. If your business is growing or scaling or if you have ambitious plans to, it’s always a good idea to talk your ideas and plans through with us. Our job is focused on supporting the growth of your business, as well as ensuring you are in compliance with the minefield of laws and regulations you might not have originally considered (or be aware of!). We like to think of ourselves as your external in-house legal team, supporting your every move as you flourish.

Fixed fee

Our fixed fees start from £500 per month and will vary depending on your needs, but once we’re agreed on a monthly fee – that’s it, you’re ready to go. We carry out regular reviews of all our subscriptions with our clients on a regular basis and we’re always happy to chat through your options. Our only focus is to work closely with you to ensure you get what you need from us.

Relationships

The most important part of our subscriptions are the relationships we build. We take (and have!) the time to get to know you and your business – that’s important to us and we know that’s important to you. A team of friendly and approachable lawyers, ready to help take your business to the next level – that’s our goal!

For more information on our subscription product, please visit: https://tend.legal/packages/