business services
Commercial Property
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At BPK we offer advice across a wide range of employment law issues. Employment legislation and protection changes rapidly and we can help keep you up to date and help you fully understand your legal obligations as an employer.
Agri Business
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OTHER BUSINESS SERVICES

Overview

If you offer credit facilities to consumers, such as:

  • offering goods or services for hire or on credit, which includes when payment is deferred by agreement
  • lending money to consumers
  • providing debt solutions and advice to consumers
  • introducing consumers to lenders as a main business activity

You will be carrying on consumer credit activities and therefore now regulated by the FCA.

What does that mean in practice?

It means first of all that you should have applied for interim permission from the FCA to carry on the consumer credit activities covered by your previous OFT licence.

However, that is not the end of it. You are now subject to the FCA’s Principles for Business, and the new rulebook for consumer credit, the Consumer Credit Sourcebook (referred to as CONC), and the FCA’s financial promotions regime in relation to your advertising.

This means that you will need to be familiar with and comply with all these rules.

In addition, you will need to apply to the FCA for full authorisation to carry on your consumer activities by 31 March 2016.

The FCA has said that it plans to carry out further research into the consumer credit market – via thematic reviews or market studies – and that it likely to result in it identifying a need for new rules and guidance.

Finally, you should be aware that the FCA is likely to enforce its rules rigorously – it has tough enforcement powers which it can use against firms it regulates which fail to comply with its rules.

How Can We Help?

We can offer the following services:

  • an opinion on the compliance of your financial promotions
  • an audit/redraft of your consumer credit documentation and procedures, pre-contract to default
  • advice on the consequences of and remedies for any events of non-compliance you may have identified

At BPK we understand that getting into debt can be an extremely stressful experience and can have serious consequences; it is vital that financial difficulties are confronted at an early stage, our specialist team can give you advice on potential solutions which include:

  • Informal creditor agreements
  • Formal Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVA)
  • Advice on Insolvency Practitioner
  • Advice regarding Statutory Demands and Bankruptcy Petitions
  • Court Proceedings

Since 1 April 2014, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been responsible for the regulation of consumer credit activities, in place of the Office for Fair Trading (OFT).

If you offer credit facilities to consumers, such as:

  • offering goods or services for hire or on credit, which includes when payment is deferred by agreement
  • lending money to consumers
  • providing debt solutions and advice to consumers
  • introducing consumers to lenders as a main business activity

you will be carrying on consumer credit activities and therefore now regulated by the FCA.

What does that mean in practice?

It means first of all that you should have applied for interim permission from the FCA to carry on the consumer credit activities covered by your previous OFT licence.

However, that is not the end of it. You are now subject to the FCA’s Principles for Business, and the new rulebook for consumer credit, the Consumer Credit Sourcebook (referred to as CONC), and the FCA’s financial promotions regime in relation to your advertising.

This means that you will need to be familiar with and comply with all these rules.

In addition, you will need to apply to the FCA for full authorisation to carry on your consumer activities by 31 March 2016.

The FCA has said that it plans to carry out further research into the consumer credit market – via thematic reviews or market studies – and that it likely to result in it identifying a need for new rules and guidance.

Finally, you should be aware that the FCA is likely to enforce its rules rigorously – it has tough enforcement powers which it can use against firms it regulates which fail to comply with its rules.

How we can help

We can offer the following services:

  • an opinion on the compliance of your financial promotions
  • an audit/redraft of your consumer credit documentation and procedures, pre-contract to default
  • advice on the consequences of and remedies for any events of non-compliance you may have identified

Intellectual Property

Disputes about copyright, trade marks or patents or domain names, all of which can be valuable business assets, can arise when other businesses:

  • use or infringe your IP without your permission, or
  • claim ownership of those rights, or
  • take action against you for infringing their IP rights.

If you have detected infringements of your IP, what is important is to protect your brand and reputation from being hijacked. Simply drawing the attention of the party infringing your rights may be sufficient to get them to stop. If not, you may be able to resolve the dispute by Alternative Dispute Resolution, rather than by taking court action – in fact, the courts will expect you to try to resolve matters before commencing court action.

On the other hand, if you are told in writing that you are infringing another person’s IP rights, then you need to seek legal advice quickly as you may need to stop what you are doing immediately.

We can advise you by assessing the strength of your case and then help you to try to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible.

Data Protection

‘Data protection’ often seems to be used as an excuse for not doing something, or not providing some information.

The Data Protection Act 1998 applies to a particular activity – processing personal data –rather than to particular people or organisations. This means that, if you collect or hold, or use, disclose, retain or destroy information about an identifiable living individual, you are likely to be processing personal data and you must comply with the provisions of the Act.

Businesses will hold personal data about their employees and customers. Whilst you may be exempt from the requirements to make notification of your activities to the Information Commissioner’s Office, you are still required to comply with the rest of the Act.

At BPK we understand that data protection and the implications of the Data Protection Act 1998 can be difficult to take in. Our specialist team can advise on:

  • notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office
  • dealing with requests for access to personal data (from staff or customers)
  • privacy policies
  • website issues (cookies)
  • data processing notices
  • rules for marketing
  • using CCTV