Design Ontap

After 22 years The Companies Act has finally been revamped, I thought some of you may appreciate a small reminder regarding the new laws surrounding e-mail and website content. Apparently failure to adhere to the regulations will result in a fine, something I'm sure we all want to avoid. It is now a requirement to list the following on business e-mails and websites:

• Company registration number
• Place of registration
• Registered office

This information must also be shown in legible characters and should also appear on order forms and in emails too. It is not however necessary to list this information on every page of your website however it must appear once, preferably on the 'About Us' page or similar.

In 2002 The Ecommerce Regulations was passed, in which it details:

"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"

This has been widely understood to include 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. Despite most websites omitting this information The Ecommerce Regulations apply to almost all websites, whether they sell goods and services online or not.

Information that must be on your 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 registration 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). For details of these requirements, see our guide, The Distance Selling Regulations - An Overview.

For help with email notices, such as disclaimers, see OUT-LAW's guide on Email notices.

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