How Many UK Webmasters Are Breaking This Law Right Now?

[Lee]

Companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers before 1 January 2007 or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine.

Every company should list its company registration number, place of registration, and registered office address on its website as a result of an update to the legislation of 1985. The information, which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order forms and in emails. Such information is already required on "business letters" but the duty is being extended to websites, order forms and electronic documents.

The change is being made by a Statutory Instrument that is expected to be passed on Thursday to implement a European law, the First Company Law Amendment Directive, into UK law. According to a Department of Trade and Industry spokesperson, the law will take effect on 1 January, one day later than the Directive requires.

The information is likely to appear in the footer of every email sent from a company, to avoid having to decide whether each email amounts to a "business letter" or not. Many companies do this already because the term "business letters" was thought likely to include emails even without this new clarification.

For websites, contrary to the fears of some, the specified information does not need to appear on every page. Again, many websites will already list the required information, perhaps on their "About us" or "Legal info" pages.

The Ecommerce Regulations, passed in 2002, require that certain information is listed on a website, including, "where the service provider is registered in a trade or similar register available to the public, details of the register in which the service provider is entered and his registration number, or equivalent means of identification in that register".

That has been understood as including the company registration number and place of registration. The Ecommerce Regulations also required a note of "the geographic address at which the service provider is established" – which many have taken to mean the registered office address.

However, the wording in the Ecommerce Regulations is ambiguous compared to the new provisions. Further, many organisations' sites currently omit the information, perhaps making the mistake of thinking that the Ecommerce Regulations do not apply to websites that do not sell online (in fact they apply to almost all websites).

Information that must be on your website
The following is the minimum information that must be on any company's website (from OUT-LAW's guide, The UK's Ecommerce Regulations).

The name, geographic address and email address of the service provider. The name of the organisation with which the customer is contracting must be given. This might differ from the trading name. Any such difference should be explained – e.g. "XYZ.com is the trading name of XYZ Enterprises Limited."

It is not sufficient to include a 'contact us' form without also providing an email address and geographic address somewhere easily accessible on the site. A PO Box is unlikely to suffice as a geographic address; but a registered office address would. If the business is a company, the registered office address must be included.

If a company, the company's registration number should be given and, under the Companies Act, the place of registation should be stated (e.g. "XYZ Enterprises Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 1234567")

If the business is a member of a trade or professional association, membership details, including any registration number, should be provided.
If the business has a VAT number, it should be stated – even if the website is not being used for e-commerce transactions.

Prices on the website must be clear and unambiguous. Also, state whether prices are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.

Finally, do not forget the Distance Selling Regulations which contain other information requirements for online businesses that sell to consumers (B2C, as opposed to B2B, sales).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12...il_regulation/

More importantly, how many of you actually knew about this new law?

It is very reminiscent of the US2257 records keeping requirement except it has a much, much broader spectrum of businesses being affected.

Regards,

Lee

[samebb]

I for one didnt know about this law, however i have a feeling it would not apply to myself anyway.

If you fall under a LTD, LLP, ect im sure this would be a definate must, however i feel many many adult, and mainstream webmasters do not infact trade as a registered company, and therefor dont have this information to display, for instance a company registration number. I do not have one of these as i am a Sole Trader, and as i said, i think a large percentage of other people are to.

I am not breaking any law trading online as a sole trader, but it does exempt me from many of these regualations. I think it might be the reason many people dont register as a limited company.

I may ofcorse be compleatly wrong, and if so i would like to be notified. I dont think its right that governments can bring in changes to laws, and not notify the people it is going to affect.

Either way, thanks for the information Lee.

[samebb]

Oh and just to add.

When i did work as a limited company up to a couple of years ago, we did display this information in out footer anyway, but we didnt on emails.
This might not have been a requirement, but as it was an e-commerce site it did provide consumers with a sense of security being able to see that information.