UK firms need to update email signatures & website to obey new European law
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Email and diary software company Softalk warns that small and medium size companies are particularly at risk of fines as most do not currently include all of the essential information in their email signatures. Every company needs to list its company registration number, place of registration and registered office address on its website and in emails.
Such information is already required on 'business letters' but the new regulations extend it to websites, order forms and electronic documents including email.
Softalk joint CEO Simon Bates said: "Small and medium size businesses have to cope with more and more draconian regulations. Owners and directors now face fines if their employees forget to include this information in email signatures. It is vital that they install and update software that enables them to append legal disclaimers to every email."
The new law is as a result of the UK government implementing a European law, the First Company Law Amendment, into UK law. The Companies (Registrar, Languages and Trading Disclosure) Regulations 2006 came into force on January 1.
Softalk advises that every company email signature should include:
> Company name and geographic address, including both the trading and registered names if these are different. Both the trading address and the registered office address must be given.
> Company registration number and place of registration (e.g. company registered in England and Wales)
> If a business is a member of a trade or professional association, membership details (including any registered number) should be shown.
> If the business has a VAT number it should be stated (prefixed with GB if it trades outside the UK)
Simon Bates warns companies not to be too open with their email disclaimers: "When a disclaimer or confidentiality notice is added to every email a company sends then there is a risk that a court would consider that the warning has been diluted. This means that it might be better to use a mail disclaimer program that allows you to use rules to attach different disclaimers to different types of email."
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