It may seem attractive at first glance to buy a business or assets from a company which is in administration; after all, the buyer may be able to get a good deal at a knock down price and be able to cherry pick those bits of the insolvent business that are of interest.

If you and your fellow shareholders own your company and are employed in the business one of your unexpected deaths could have serious and adverse consequences for either the company or the bereaved family.

The Working Time Regulations 1998, limit the average working time for a worker to 48 hours per week. The average is generally taken over a 17-week period. One way of getting round this limit is to ensure that workers agree in writing not to be subject to the limit, the so-called opt-out.

December 2009 saw two business regulations come into force in the UK which will have a significant impact on a large number of UK businesses.

The market is littered with foreign companies that tried to start a UK business from scratch. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons why they failed to make it a success.

"One of the few reported judgments relating to the NEC form of contract" as the Con LR Editors remark. It concerns the relationship between HGCR Act adjudication provisions and the dispute resolution provisions of the (amended) NEC contract used for a sewage works project.

Melville Dundas Ltd v George Wimpey UK Ltd [2007] 1 WLR 1136 HL - The first decision by the House of Lords on the payment provisions of the HGCR Act. By a majority of 3-2, the appeal of the appellant employer succeeded, the contractor had previously been successful; n the Court of Session. The contractor had gone into receivership, entitling the employer to terminate the (JCT 1998) contract, but the contractor claimed interim payments due in the absence of a withholding notice.