When a new outsourcing contract is put in place and the relevant part of the business is either moved from an internal department of the customer to a new provider, or an outsourcing contract is removed from an existing provider and given to a new provider, then employees dedicated to that part of the business [...]

If one of the directors of a company is appointed as a “managing director”, what special powers does he or she have? This question came up in a recent High Court case where various directors – including a “managing director” – fell out with one another in a big way. As that case shows, much [...]

When directors or shareholders of small technology companies fall out things can get very nasty, and since most technology companies have secrets of one kind or another (trade secrets, secret processes and other confidential information) one of the major risks is that one of the warring parties will misuse those secrets in order to form [...]

The Bribery Act 2010 will come into force on 1 July 2011 and codifies offences of offering bribes (to be found in section 1 of the Act), receiving bribes (section 2), bribery of foreign public officials (section 6) and, most controversially of all, the failure by a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid [...]

Most modern commercial contracts contain detailed termination provisions setting out how a contract can be terminated by one side if the other does something wrong, but they do not always work as intended.

Contracts need not be complicated things, and unless you unleash a rather old-fashioned lawyer onto the job most contracts can be written in fairly standard, clear English. Many seasoned executives know their way around the standard contracts in their industries pretty well, so is a solicitor necessary in the contracting process? Often the answer will [...]

Terms such as “letter of intent”, “memorandum of understanding” and “heads of agreement” are often bandied about in business on documents which are intended somehow to fall short of a “full” contract, but what exactly are they and, in particular, what effect do they have if the parties subsequently fall out?