Is a limited company protected from divorce?
As a limited company has its own legal identity, the court cannot make orders directly against it. By way of example, if a limited company owns a house, the court could not order the company to transfer that house to the husband, even if the wife is the sole shareholder or wholly in control of the company. It is the company which owns the house, not the shareholder.
However this does not mean that a limited company is completely disregarded. If a party in a divorce is a shareholder of a limited company, it is likely the court will want to know how much the shares are worth which inevitably requires an assessment of the value of the company and its underlying assets and interests. The court could order that those shares are sold to realise their value. A court could order that there is a transfer of shares from one spouse to another, which frequently happens if both spouses are joint shareholders. Alternatively, the court may offset the value of a shareholding against other assets so the shareholder keeps the shares in full but their spouse keeps more of a different asset.
A company may also be seen as a source of liquidity if it holds excess cash. Whilst a court cannot order a company to pay a lump sum to somebody, it could make an order against a shareholder requiring them to make a cash payment to their spouse knowing full well that the only way to satisfy the payment is to extract cash from the company such as through declaring a dividend or taking a loan from the company.
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You also need to consider other aspects of data protection.
Be proportionate – only gather and use Covid-19 data where you need to.
Keep data to a minimum – you shouldn’t gather more data than you need. You need to know someone has Covid-19 but you don’t need to know all their symptoms. Data minimisation also applies to who gets access to the data. It’s unlikely that a spreadsheet, accessible to everyone updating them on the health status of all employees, would be appropriate. Data should be shared on a need to know basis. You need to balance the privacy of individuals against your duty of care to be responsible with regards to the data of your employees, visitors, customers and suppliers.
Keep it up to date – make sure you update data. People’s health status will change and if you keep a record of this, you need to make sure it is accurate and up to date (although this doesn’t mean you should batter individuals with constant requests for updates on health status. Again, be proportionate).
Identify individuals only when you need to – although you will need to know who has Covid-19, that doesn’t mean you need to tell everyone in the organisation. As soon as you can, you should remove personal data from any information you gather. For example, you might want to update employees on the health status of their fellow employees but you probably don’t need to name individuals and even if you feel it is necessary, you should keep the information you provide to a minimum. Removing personal identifiers in a document is also a good data security technique.
Keep the Covid-19 health data secure – Covid-19 data will be special category data and deemed high risk. This means that if you have a breach of this data you will need to notify it to the ICO. A breach could happen by someone losing a print-out of the names of Covid-19 employees, customers or visitors. It could also happen if you set access rights to lists of Covid-19 sufferers open to more people than need to know the information. The risk of ICO enforcement action increases with the potential harm the disclosure could cause. Although the ICO has indicated that it will be understanding about the impact of Covid-19 on normal operations, this doesn’t mean that they will not prosecute you if the breach is sufficiently serious.
Destroy the data once you don’t need it – Finally, of course, make sure that you delete data at the end of your needs. This might last longer than the pandemic, for example if you have an insurance claim or ongoing litigation. If you do need to keep it, consider whether or not you can delete some of the data to minimise what you hold.
An obvious cost cutting measure is to reduce salaries, either temporarily or permanently. If you are to seek a reduction in salaries, this should be done fairly – either across the board or by selecting teams/individuals based on objective business reasons.
Note that this cannot be imposed without significant risk. Without agreement, this would need fair selection and consultation.
The government has stated that the scheme will apply to apprentices and that they can continue to train whilst they are furloughed. However you must pay at least the Apprenticeship Minimum Wage, National Living Wage or National Minimum Wage for all periods of training during furlough leave, taking into account the rate increases from 1 April 2020 and the increases which will take effect from 1 April 2021. This means that you will be responsible for any shortfall in the amount claimed under the scheme and the appropriate minimum wage.
We recommend that you get in touch to discuss any queries on furloughing apprentices.
This will depend on the arrangements your mum (or dad, as the case may be) and her spouse have made. They may have made ‘mirror Wills’ or ‘mutual Wills’. Alternatively, they may have simply made their own Wills which have totally different provisions.
If your mum and your step-dad made ‘mirror Wills’, then the surviving spouse can revoke that Will and make a new one. They may not leave you anything under their new Will, and a dispute may rise.
If your mum and your step-dad made ‘mutual Wills’, they make a legal promise not to change their Will unless they both agree to this.
Complex family structures can lead to issues and fallouts when someone dies. These circumstances are very fact-specific. You can contact us for advice and we can advise you whether we think you have a claim.
The Chancellor announced that employers will be given £2,000 to employ apprentices and £1,500 for apprentices over the age of 25 for each apprentice they hire from 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2021. These payments will be in addition to the existing £1,000 payment the Government already provide for new 16-18 year old apprentices.
He also announced that employers would be given £1,000 for taking on trainees in response to the traineeship scheme being extended.