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Consumer contracts regulations: sample clauses

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Fri, 06/06/2014 - 11:10

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 are coming into force next week. They include a detailed list of information that a trader must provide to a consumer in situations where the Regulations apply. Should you use the model instructions on cancellation to help you comply with this requirement, or should you draft special legal clauses for your contracts?

The list of information that must be supplied is set out in Schedule 2, and includes the following items:

Legal area: 
internet law

New distance selling laws: 8 key compliance points

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Tue, 03/06/2014 - 06:35

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 apply special rules to B2C distance contracts entered into via a website, as well as certain other contracts (not discussed here).

The Regulations, effective on 13 June 2014, replace the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. See:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/contents/made

Legal area: 
internet law

Online advice: worth the risks?

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Tue, 25/03/2014 - 13:12

Whether you are purchasing legal forms and templates, seeking a medical diagnosis, getting insider information when choosing a school or university, or soliciting the opinions of product aficionados on a prospective purchase, there are many ways to get guidance and advice online - but what are the risks for those providing this guidance and advice?

Legal area: 
internet law

The website operator defence: will it really make a difference?

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Mon, 27/01/2014 - 10:45

Website operators facing defamation action over users’ posts can now rely on the new ‘website operator’ defence.  To use the defence, the operator must comply with a prescribed process after receiving a notice of complaint about allegedly defamatory material posted online. 

The defence follows increasing concerns about defamatory digital content posted by website users – particularly anonymous users.  But a critical question is, just how useful and cost effective will the new defence be in practice?

What’s new?

Legal area: 
defamation law

10 key facts about English contract law

Submitted by James Normington on Tue, 02/04/2013 - 16:26
Contracts occur in every business. It might be as simple as the agreement with the milkman to deliver the milk and your obligation to pay for it, or it might be an order you made with a major supplier. There is one thing which you can be certain of, which is that you don’t want to find out there is a problem with your contract when you are walking through the door of a courthouse with a disgruntled person on the other side.
Legal area: 
contract law

Cancellation conundrums: distance sales of goods and services

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Sun, 03/03/2013 - 11:18
The Distance Selling Regulations contain an intricate set of rules concerning the cancellation, by consumers, of distance contracts for the supply of goods. A different set of rules concerns the cancellation of distance contracts for the supply of services. But nowhere in the Regulations is there any guidance on the cancellation of distance contracts for the supply of both goods and services.
Legal area: 
consumer law
internet law

Customer testimonials and the law

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Sun, 27/01/2013 - 10:11
Testimonials are a good way to reassure potential customers that your business is genuine, and your products or services are well-regarded by existing customers. There are however a couple of legal issues you should bear in mind if you're thinking of collating and publishing testimonials on your website: first, don't make them up; and second, get consent to publish. In this post, I take a quick look at these issues and suggest some text for gaining formal consent.
Legal area: 
internet law

Web partnership contracts involving content-based promotion

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Tue, 22/01/2013 - 14:28

Partnerships are an important part of many website marketing strategies, particularly content-based partnerships. Through such partnerships, a website operator can access the anonymous traffic, registered users and marketing lists of others. Just as important, an operator can gain access to original and relevant content for his or her own audience.

Legal area: 
internet law
marketing law

Website design, contracts and designer credits

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Wed, 02/01/2013 - 13:54
Many web designers include credits ("Designed by XYZ") as a matter of course on the websites that they create. Many web design contracts do not, however, cover the issue of credits. Whilst in some cases contractual clauses relating to credits may be overkill, in other cases they can be very useful indeed. This post examines the main issues: rights of paternity and contractual rights to include, remove and edit credits.
Legal area: 
internet law

Notes on manufacturing, exclusivity and competition

Submitted by Alasdair Taylor on Sat, 20/10/2012 - 12:02
One of the more contested provisions in many types of manufacturing contract is the non-compete or exclusivity clause. Customers often want to restrict the rights of manufacturers to use customer know-how to compete against the customer. Indeed, they may want to go further than this, restricting the rights of manufacturers to use know-how gained simply as a result of the contract, even if it wasn't disclosed by the customer. Manufacturers, on the other hand, will usually wish to retain a free hand to apply know-how gained in one area of their business to other areas.
Legal area: 
commercial law