The Practical Lawyer

 It is common for a contract to contain a liability cap. The idea is to protect the seller or service provider from being sued for much more than the value of the contract.

Suppose I agree to buy something but we do not agree the price, the specification or even the date for delivery. Is that a binding contract, or is it merely an unenforceable ‘agreement to agree’?

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Trunki case has been greeted with disappointment by many UK designers and innovators. The clear message that emerges, however, is that registering a design is still an important step to take but the utmost care should be taken when filing those registered designs. Too much detail can be counterproductive, since it may restrict the scope of protection. The best advice is to keep designs as simple as possible, and then make multiple applications to protect every variant and aspect.

Important changes in the taxation of capital received on a winding up come into effect on 6 April 2016. As a result, taxpayers may want to consider winding up or declaring substantial dividends before that date.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 creates a powerful new set of rights for ‘consumers’. But, it is important to remember that in non-consumer transactions the existing statutory regime applies. Accordingly, businesses that deal with both consumers and non-consumers need to ensure that their contractual terms and conditions cover both sets of customers.

As we noted in the December 2015/January 2016 issue (p19) the Supreme Court has given an important decision on penalty clauses in contracts:

Many commercial agency contracts have termination provisions which say that the agent will get the lesser of an indemnity payment or compensation. But, will such a provision be valid?

Private copying is (once again) unlawful.