Commercial and company law update

Course Overview

It is vital that you are fully up to date with the implications of commercial and company law for your business. You need to know whether, and if so how, it limits your room for manoeuvre when negotiating commercial agreements. You need to know how it can help you, and how it can hinder you.

This popular one-day conference will show you how to avoid falling foul of the regulatory authorities and ensure that you are operating in accordance with today’s interpretation of the law, whilst still maintaining your organisation's success.

Audience

• In-house lawyers
• Lawyers in private practice

This programme will also be of benefit to other company executives whose work requires a good understanding of commercial and company law and its impact on their business, including:

• Commercial directors and managers
• Contracts directors and managers
• Company secretaries

Course Outline

Commercial law update

• Key developments in contract interpretation
• Are pre-contract negotiations enforceable?
• What do best and reasonable endeavours involve?
• Material breach – what does it mean?
• The courts’ approach to mistake and rectification

Competition law update

• Topical issues in competition law and current enforcement trends
• Recent EU and UK competition cases
• Key developments in EU and UK merger control
• Market investigations, market studies and sector inquiries

Main changes to company law in the 6 April 2008 implementation of the Companies Act 2006, including:

• Accounts and Reports
• Audit
• Company secretaries
• Execution of documents
• Distributions

Data protection and IT law update

• Data protection
• Trans border data flows
• Information security
• Recent case law
• Social network services

Intellectual property law update

• Trademarks
• EU expansion
• Madrid Protocol
• what can be registered – the latest from the ECJ
• infringement cases: practical cases
• parallel imports
• Patents
• the Community Patent
• improving the European and the UK patent system
• the UK Patents Act 2004
• patentability of computer related inventions
• Designs and copyright
• a brief update
• Database rights
• where are we following BHB wWilliam Hill?

Insolvency law update

• The insolvency aspects of the Enterprise Act in practice
• The new TUPE Regulations and their implications
• The EU Regulation on insolvency
• Issues highlighted by recent case law

Employment law update

• Statutory disciplinary procedures
• Age discrimination
• ICE regulations
• Update on any key recent case law