New legislation re company details on websites and email footers

cornishman · 4th January 2007, 11:43 AM

I have just been made aware of this story ....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12...il_regulation/
on The Register website.

To summarise, it says:

"Companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers before 1 January 2007 or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine.

Every company should list its company registration number, place of registration, and registered office address on its website as a result of an update to the legislation of 1985. The information, which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order forms and in emails."

I had not seen anything about this until now - is this common knowledge? I guess this is likely to affect a lot of us here, whether we have our own sites or design & maintain sites for clients.

Joe

clyde · 4th January 2007, 12:03 PM

Sounds like more typical useless bureaucracy from useless civil servants. If they had any real qualifications they'd get a real job, and leave us workers alone. After all, we do need SOME time to do some real work, in order to pay taxes to support them.

Terra · 4th January 2007, 02:41 PM

Well - I was aware of it. When you register a limited company, company house sends you info about your legal obligations and stating the above information on all company correspondences is one of them. As emails & website are treated in the same way as printed material it applies to them.

As it says its' been part of the company act for a long time and the limited company's secretary should usually make sure that this is followed. It also of course applies to letters and company literature.

As far as I know this only applies to limited companies though. A sole trader does not constitute a company in the eyes of the companies act.

The impact for web designers should not be that big - it's the companies responsibility to tell you what content the site has to have, after all web designers aren't lawyers.

PS: another requirement is usually the VAT number and the tax point date of the invoice.

Edith

CSNM-Carl · 4th January 2007, 08:16 PM

As far as I know, the new regulation will only be applied to incorporated bodies; i.e limited & PLC companies; If as a sole trader you are VAT registered then the relavant parts will apply. A wider issue for consideration is that ISP's may have to provide customer details to the regulatory authorities.

I was told this by someone else...

mattjenn · 5th January 2007, 04:33 PM

You can find a full and encompassing article on what company details you should show on your site here:

http://www.out-law.com/page-431

Something I didn't know ...
"If the business has a VAT number, it should be stated – even if the website is not being used for e-commerce transactions."

HTH
Matt

Terra · 5th January 2007, 05:16 PM

Another good resource is the business link site - it has a full overview of e-commerce:

Business Link: E-commerce and the law

One article states:

Code:

To comply with the general information requirements of the E-commerce Regulations 2002 you must give recipients of your online services:
* your business' name, geographic address and other details including your email address
* details of any publicly available register in which you are entered, together with your registration number or equivalent
* the particulars of the supervisory body if the service is subject to an authorisation scheme
* details of any professional body with which you are registered
* your VAT registration number

If your website refers to prices, these must be clear and indicate whether they include tax and delivery costs.

Edith

Tim · 5th January 2007, 06:25 PM

Just out of interest, has anyone ever heard of a company being fined or even warned about not displaying such information?