The latest legal updates for businesses - March 2023

read time: 2 min
22.03.23

This quarter’s newsletter focusses on a wide range of articles from Corporate, Technology and Employment.

Corporate

Business scale-up hub

As part of an investment into a company, documents are drafted such as the articles of association, subscription agreement and shareholders’ agreement. The British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (“BVCA”) recently updated their model investment documents which are frequently used as a starting point for certain investments. Alongside these new model documents is the requirement for a suite of other documents to be entered into. Ashfords has a “Business Scale-up Hub” on its website with several resources, such as a helpful guide to getting started with the investment process, FAQs and template documents, as well as a link to the new BVCA model investment documents.

Click here to visit the hub

For more information, please contact our Corporate Team.

Employment

Right to Work checks – The consequences of getting it wrong

All employers should ensure they understand how to conduct right to work checks and have the correct procedures in place to carry them out.

The consequences of employing illegal workers can be severe, but in circumstances where illegal working is discovered, an employer who has established a statutory excuse by correctly carrying out a right to work check will be excused from the civil penalties set out in our article here.

Contact our Employment Team for more information.

Technology

Software developers and duty of care to cryptocurrency owners

A ground-breaking case on cryptoassets and software developers’ duty of care to end users is set to be heard next year. We expect that the trial will clarify for the first time some key legal positions in this area, including:

  • whether bitcoin (and thus, other cryptocurrency) is property;
  • the level and type of control that developers actually have over the relevant blockchain networks, or the cryptoasset itself; and
  • what duty of care developers owe to their end users, if at all.

This article provides you with a brief background to the case, from the first instance judgment to the Court of Appeal’s analysis that informed their decision to allow the trial and our take on why this case will be significant to the blockchain and digital assets community.

Find out more here.

Contact our Technology Team for more information.

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