Regulation affects most businesses in one form or another, whether through legislation relating to health and safety, trading standards, data protection, financial services or environmental issues. The regulators have wide powers to search premises, obtain witness statements, impose sanctions on businesses and senior managers and prosecute individuals and companies for breaches of regulatory legislation.
The trend of growth in regulation is likely to continue and businesses should take steps to minimise the risk of prosecution. These should include reviewing existing policies, procedures and documentation to ensure they are fully compliant and setting up a contingency plan to cover the situation if and when things go wrong.
An important part of any contingency plan is to secure immediate access to legal representation. However, it is our experience that businesses often seek legal assistance when it is too late. This inevitably means that we then have to try and rectify the position for the client, which can often prove difficult and expensive.
Health and Safety at Work
In order to encourage our clients to instruct us sooner as opposed to later we can offer a 24-hour hotline in relation to health and safety and regulatory matters.
We can also arrange legal representation at very short notice to ensure that any investigation is conducted fairly and that our client’s position is put across in the best possible light at the earliest opportunity.
However, should this not prove to be enough to avoid prosecution we can then provide effective legal representation throughout the court process.
Our regulatory team are able to deal with a variety of areas within health and safety matters including:
- Health & Safety
- Food Safety
- Trading Standards
- Public Inquiry Hearings
For further information on these and any other employment issues please contact our Employment Team on 0121 698 2200 or via our online enquiry form.
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