Swine flu-can you rely on a force majeure clause? What would happen to your business if a significant number of your employees (or of course you yourself) were unable to come to work because of swine flu? Would your business be able to fulfil its contractual obligations? If not, you could face breach of contract claims from your own customers. However, if you have a force majeure clause in your terms and conditions, you could have a way out. Obviously it would be unusual to have a formal reference to a viral pandemic as a triggering event, but there could be reference to "natural disaster" or "act of God" (whatever that means); often there is a sweeping up clause such as "causes beyond the parties' reasonable control".  Having such a clause isn't of itself enough to avoid liability, but it's certainly a good place to start. There's a fuller article about force majeure on our website here. 

Money Laundering-do you need to register your business? The Money Laundering Regulations have been around for a while, and require certain types of businesses register with and make reports to the Serious Organised Crime Agency if they suspect their customers of financial irregularities. Many professional businesses have been subject to these regulations for some time, but as from July 21 2009 the regulations have been amended to catch many more. All businesses that are engaged in property sales and provide consumer credit must now register, as well as any company that deals in cash with a value of 15,000 Euros or more. The penalty for breach of the regulations is potentially an unlimited fine and even imprisonment. Registration costs £115. There's a useful guide here at the HMRC website which will tell you whether you need to register and if so how. 

New regulations for cancelling contracts The snappily-titled "Cancellation of Contracts Made at a Consumer's Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008 "came into force on 1 October 2008; these regulations impose strict requirements on any business that contracts with a consumer at their home or workplace, unless the contract is excepted (this includes the sale or rental of immoveable property so doesn't apply to estate agents for instance). A "consumer" includes a business where they are not acting in the course of their trade or profession, so the regulations catch a very wide range of situations, and apply to any contract worth more than £35. If the regulations do apply, the consumer can cancel the contract within 7 days-ie a cooling off period. The regulations can't be contracted out of, and require that the consumer's right to cancel is set out in a written notice as part of any written contract, or separately if there isn't one. Breach of the regulations is an offence punishable by a fine. The notice must state the identity of the trader, a statement of the cancellation rights and how they can be exercised, the address to send any notice to and that the notice is deemed served when posted or emailed. A cancellation form must also be provided as a detachable slip. If the regulations aren't complied with, the contract is unenforceable.

Data protection The Information Commissioner's Office has recently ruled that the Manchester City Council was in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 after two laptops containing unencrypted personal details of it's employees were stolen. The ICO is urging all organisations to encrypt their laptops to stop sensitive data getting into the wrong hands; for more information take a look at the ICO's website here.

Good news if you've been clamped on private land There is virtually no statutory regulation of the way in which car clampers operate on private land (although this may change in the near future), and there have been a host of stories in the media about some of the more extreme examples. Cleggs recently acted on behalf of a client that became embroiled in a lengthy court case when a car it owned was clamped and towed away, and were successful in having the claim against it thrown out. The judgment is a useful review of the law applicable to these cases; you can read an article about it, and the judgment of His Honour Holt sitting at the Ipswich County Court, here. The costs that the clamping firm will have to pay will be close to £20,000 by the way!