A number of circumstance may give rise to you wanting to transfer a contract. For instance, you may have sold your business and you want to transfer your customer contracts or purchase contracts to the purchaser of the business.
Have you sufficiently brought your terms and conditions of trade to the attention of your customers and contractors to ensure they will take effect should something go wrong? For one New Zealand company recently, the answer was unfortunately "no".
Most businesses that have a standard set of terms and conditions of sale will also include a clause providing for interest in the event of non-payment. Often such clauses will provide for interest at a rate that is tied to the 90-day bill rate or the official cash rate.
Despite their informal nature, emails can create binding obligations.
Even though we are now out of an economic downturn, it is still useful to look at what lessons learned during the downturn could give better protection for business owners including how key assets are owned.
Employment Agreements sometimes contain indemnities from the employer for liabilities the employee incurs in the course performing his or her duties as employee. Such an indemnity can also be implied by law, if the employment agreement does not contain an explicit indemnity. However there are some issues that can affect the enforceability of these.
The High Court decision of Lewis Holdings Ltd v Steel & Tube Holdings Ltd [2014] NZHC 3311 has highlighted the importance of maintaining a subsidiary’s independence from its parent company.
Starting a new business can be an exciting time, and one in which, during the excitement, considerations of legal and structural issues are often overlooked. This often leads to costly and time-consuming problems. To help you minimise the risk of unintended or unforeseen consequences in the future, this article sets out some of the issues you should consider before starting a new business.
Where a lease requires the tenant to obtain the landlord’s consent, the Property Law Act 2007 says that the landlord cannot ‘unreasonably’ withhold or delay that consent. Any considerations or obligations to consent set out in a lease must also be reasonable.
So you have found a business that you are interested in buying. Before you enter into the sale and purchase agreement you should complete an initial appraisal of the business. You should try to identify the business’ major strengths and weaknesses so that you can address any concerns in the sale and purchase agreement and in setting the purchase price.