05
Contract law and company law underpin every business transaction. Understanding the basics protects you whether you are supplying or being supplied.
Key topics
Commercial debts carry statutory interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate from the day after the payment due date, under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. You are also entitled to a fixed debt recovery cost of £40–£100 depending on the debt size.
A contract requires offer, acceptance, consideration, and an intention to create legal relations. Business contracts are presumed to intend legal relations. Email chains can constitute binding contracts if all elements are present.
A limited company is a separate legal entity from its shareholders. Directors owe duties to the company under the Companies Act 2006. A sole trader and their business are the same legal person — personal assets are exposed to business debts.
If a party fails to perform a contract, the other side can claim damages to put them in the position they would have been in had the contract been performed. Consequential losses are recoverable if they were foreseeable at the time the contract was made.
Guides
Stage 05 · notice
If a business owes you money on a commercial contract and has not paid after the due date, you are entitled to statutory…
Stage 05 · resolve
If an organisation fails to respond to your Subject Access Request (SAR) within one month, refuses it without adequate r…
Stage 02 · rights
If you incorporate a company at Companies House, the name must be unique and must not be sensitive or misleading. Sole t…
Latest news
HM Courts & Tribunals Service has updated the fee bands for money claims. The small claims track limit is also under review for a proposed increase.
2 min read →The Information Commissioner's Office has handed down its largest fine under UK GDPR to a retail company that stored payment card data in plaintext for over three years.
3 min read →Regulations extending the Payment Practices and Performance Reporting scheme require more large companies to publish half-yearly data on how quickly they pay their suppliers.
3 min read →The Information Commissioner's Office sets out how UK GDPR applies to training, deploying, and using large language models that process personal data.
4 min read →Articles
How-to
Where to begin, which parts to skip, and how to tell a rule from its exceptions. A method you can use on any law.
Explainer
The order in which rules apply, and what happens to a clause that goes against the law.
How-to
What to include, what to leave out, and how to prove it was received.
Explainer
Cost, time and control over the result, compared side by side.
FAQ
General answers with links to official sources. Not legal advice.
Official resources