In a commercial world where the need to tender for work is increasingly becoming the norm, most organisations have developed processes for applying for such work. Nevertheless the timescale for such submissions is often short, especially where input from colleagues across the organisation is required, not forgetting the detailed legal and financial input that is also obligatory.

With so many involved and with such little time available it is perhaps not surprising that sometimes applications are submitted which contain an error. Sometimes, a simple error can mean that a candidate, who might otherwise have been well placed to carry out the work, may lose a contract which may have a serious impact on its business.

A recent case considered whether there is any obligation to allow the correction of honest mistakes in tender applications. The case involved a firm of solicitors and the Legal Services Commission who were looking to place immigration and asylum cases.

The applicants were scored on a points basis and were awarded a number of cases depending on how well they scored. The applicant made an error in their submission specifying that they did not offer a particular service when in fact they did (as could be shown from objective evidence). Consequently they failed to be awarded the number of cases they would have expected and they appealed.

Unfortunately for them the court found that there was no obligation on the awarding body to reconsider their application in light of the obvious error meaning that the firm lost out on a considerable amount of work.

This case, and others like it, highlights the importance of getting the documentation right in tender processes. While organisations may have processes in place to ensure that actual contracts are checked before they are completed, such processes may not exist or be applied to tender applications.

As tendering becomes more the norm, such processes are becoming more and more crucial.

To assist with the process, Withy King offers a fixed price contract review service, with a quick turnaround time, which enables you to understand any problems with the legal side of the documentation and highlight these points at an early stage in your submission, for more information please contact Alex Pyatt of the Corporate Team.

Small and medium-sized businesses squeezed by the recession have been calling out for a more straightforward, efficient and less bureaucratic framework for employment law in the UK. These cries have now been answered with plans which allow for a renewed focus on growth in the SME sector.

On the anniversary of the election of the Lib-Con Coalition government George Osborne announced plans for a “wholesale review” of employment law and proposed to support his austerity budget with employer-friendly proposals aimed at encouraging recovery and driving down unemployment.

His plans include capping tribunal awards for discrimination in the workplace, targeted at high profile claims where compensation has reached upwards of £440,000 for sex discrimination and as much as £730,000 for disability discrimination.

The review is also set to consider introducing fees and rules to limit vexatious claims being brought by disgruntled employees. This would see the Tribunal adopting a regime similar to that of the other civil courts where an upfront fee to lodge a claim is expected to put off a significant number of claims. As it stands, an employment judge may order the employee to pay a deposit into the court if their claim is considered to have ‘little prospect of success’ but this sanction is rarely used.

Other proposals include;

simplifying the administration of the National Minimum Wage regime,
reducing the collective consultation period for redundancy from 90 to 30 days,
a shake up of the protection of employment rules,
a general review of the awards and sanctions available to the Tribunal.

So what does this mean for the employee?

Unions and employee opinion groups have raised concerns that this will entitle employers to “hire and fire at will” and that the scale of the proposals amount to a “bonfire” of employee and union protections. It is unlikely that the Coalition would want to be seen as dramatically anti-employee but certain proposals are likely to create a fear of uncertainty and reduced protection from dismissal and discrimination.

It is interesting to note that in reality the proposals will be difficult to implement given that discrimination and TUPE are fundamentally embedded within European legislation which is not up for discussion.

Business groups who support the move to encouraging a modern ‘flexible’ approach to employment are now awaiting Osborne’s timetable for the review whilst critics say that it may never come.

For more information please contact Malcolm Gregory of the Employment Team.

The privacy debate has come back to the fore following the latest news coverage of the personal life of a well-known football player, as well as the news that an unidentified Twitter user had published a list of individuals who had obtained super-injunctions.

The latter raises an important question, namely whether Twitter and other social networking sites should be immune from sanction if they allow their sites to be used to publish information that other media sources would be precluded from publishing as a consequence of the existence of a super-injunction.

Whether or not we like the idea of super-injunctions, they are a legitimate method by which privacy can be protected. It is surely, therefore, discriminatory to allow Twitter to gain what is, in effect, a commercial advantage over other media organisations in this way.

It is recognised that the policing of social network sites raises complex practical issues, not least because many of them, including Twitter, are not based in the UK and so are not subject to the jurisdiction of the English Courts. Nevertheless, these difficulties should not be used as an excuse to avoid the issue of social networking sites being allowed to carry on such practices unhindered.

Ironically, users of Twitter face a real risk of being in breach of super-injunctions if link to “offending” accounts, and surely the time has come to bring an end to this absurd anomaly and apply the law in a fair and even handed way. To do otherwise brings the law into further disrepute.

For more information please contact Philip Banks-Welsh of the Dispute Resolution team.

Calling all Directors…….did you know that by failing to keep the necessary registers and records for your company, you and your company may be committing an offence? This is punishable by an up to £1,000 fine and a further £100 for every day that your company remains non-compliant.

Maintenance of company books is the responsibility of the directors, one that is often overlooked, with many companies today not complying with their statutory obligations. By law, every company is required to maintain a range of registers. These registers contain details of transactions of the company including registers of members, directors and debentures. The maintenance of these is often not high on a company’s priority list but failure to comply can cost you.

As well as ensuring that you are compliant with the law, a maintained set of company books offer you a clear record of your company’s transactions. A prudent investor will also demand to see your company books and may not be impressed to find empty pages.