Newsletter Spring 2008
CDM 2007-a dull acronym, but an important one and worth a reminder. Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007, effective as from April 6 2007, imposes health and safety duties on everyone commissioning construction work (apart from domestic works). This would cover everything from minor maintenance and decorating to major building works. You are required to ensure that the contractor is competent, capable of working safely, and has access to adequate welfare facilities. Checking competence may mean obtaining copies of the contractor’s risk assessments, method statements, references, insurance certificates and so on. It might be worth putting together a standard questionnaire for these competency checks, and make sure you keep them because if there is an accident you may need them to protect yourself from a claim; potentially your insurance company could decline cover if you don’t have them. You also have to provide information about the building and the project-fire evacuation procedures and whether or not asbestos is present, for example. If the project is going to last more than 30 days or involve more than 500 person hours it is “notifiable” and even more stringent requirements apply.
True Grit-do you or don’t you when it’s frosty? there are any number of statutory requirements covering safe access into, out of and around commercial premises. This doesn’t mean you have to grit the whole car park necessarily, but clearing the walkways is sensible-as well as warning signs stating the ground is slippery. Tripping and slipping claims are amongst the commonest types of personal injury, but they are also the easiest ones to guard against with sensible precautions.
Intellectual property-it is possible to obtain an injunction against products whose name could be confused with yours, particularly if you have taken the precaution of registering your brandname as a trade mark if value attaches to it. However there must be the possibility of confusion; Louis Vuitton failed in their attempt to injunct a company called Haute Diggedy Dog, who were selling a dog chew under the name of “Chewey Vuitton”. The company’s other dog-related products include a chew called “Dolce and Grrbana” and the “Chewnell No. 5” bed.
Companies Act 2006 update-many measures were due to be introduced in October 2008. These have now been put back to October 2009. We will let you know as soon as we have some further news on the changes as they are announced.
Using credit cards abroad-section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes credit card companies liable for misrepresentation or breaches of contract by the person supplying the goods or services where the price is over £100 but less than £30,000; very few consumers make use of this very powerful weapon. It was thought that this protection didn’t extend to transactions abroad, but the Court of Appeal has now disagreed. Interestingly you don’t need to be abroad for the protection to apply-it also works if you order goods from abroad over the internet for delivery in the UK, for instance.