Liverpool: 0151 224 0500   |   Manchester: 0161 827 4600   |   Email: info@bermans.co.uk   |   Twitter Icon  |  Linkedin Icon
bermans_logo

Buying distressed businesses

jon_davage

In this article, Jon Davage outlines some pointers for those seeking acquisition opportunities via an insolvency process.

The folding of a company may be catastrophic for the stakeholders of the relevant company, but insolvencies provide buyers with the ability to acquire assets and valuable customer contracts at reduced prices. However, acquisitions of this type are not without their perils and often have hidden costs. Here are some issues to consider before you embark on this type of deal.

Continue Reading

Employment Law: Redundancy bumping

A redundancy arises when there is a reduction in the employer’s requirements for employees to carry out work of a particular kind. Sometimes an employee whose role is redundant can be redeployed into another role in the organisation. The occupier of that second role can be fairly dismissed instead – even though their role is not redundant. This process is known as ‘bumping.’

Continue Reading

What are partnerships?

What is a partnership?

Put simply, a partnership is the coming together of two or more parties with a view to making a profit. Partnership is used for various purposes. It is common amongst the professions such as law firms, accountancy and medical practices. It can however be as simple as two or more people holding a property for letting purposes, and sharing the proceeds of the income of the property.

Continue Reading

Employment Law: Expectation to work long hours

As an employer you may require your employees to work longer hours from time to time to meet business needs. If you have a disabled employee who cannot work these hours, you may have to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 and allow the employee to work a shorter shift. However, do you still have that duty if there is no contractual requirement to work the longer hours and only an expectation that the employee does so?

Continue Reading

What are my duties as a director?

If you are a director of a limited company in the UK, then you owe a wide range of duties to that company. Breaches of duty can give rise to personal liability and, in some cases, criminal sanctions so a proper understanding of your duties and responsibilities is essential.

Often, a director will be ignorant of his or her responsibilities (or some of them). Sometimes, a director will also be a shareholder and/or employee of the company and this can lead to confusion as to how the director is to exercise his or her powers. Both of these situations can lead to serious problems if they result in breaches of the director’s duties, whether those breaches are deliberate or not.

Continue Reading

Employment Law: Disability discrimination – definition of cancer

Cancer is listed as a disability under the Equality Act 2010, providing sufferers from protection from discrimination. Employers must also make reasonable adjustments to a cancer sufferer’s job to remove any disadvantage they suffer as a result of their cancer. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has now held that pre-cancerous lesions will also amount to a disability.

Continue Reading

Employment Law: Ignorance of employment rights

A woman who was paid 33 pence per hour as a domestic worker and was unaware of her right to the national minimum wage has been successful in her claim for constructive unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996. Ms Mruke was uneducated and illiterate. She was from Tanzania and spoke no English. Ms Mruke argued that her employer Ms Khan had breached her contract of employment by failing to pay her the national minimum wage.

Continue Reading