Commenting on the speech made by Ed Miliband on banking, Caroline Williams CEO Norfolk Chamber, said:
“Too often businesses face Hobson’s Choice in getting the finance they need. There are limited choices for businesses looking for credit vital to grow, invest, and take on staff. What’s more, switching between banks can be an administrative nightmare for many companies.
“We need a more competitive banking environment that enables businesses and consumers to access the best products and services. The commercial banking industry has to change, and both government and regulators must create an environment that ensures firms get a fair deal from lenders.
“Creating new banks is one way of driving up competition and choice, but on its own, it will not solve the funding gap faced by firms. The creation of a dedicated business bank would ensure that new and growing companies can access the finance they need to develop new products and services, export to new markets, and take on more staff.”
Norwich and Diss based law firm Steeles Law has recently recruited a new Marketing Manager and Business Development Executive, signalling a major investment in these areas for the future growth of the Whiting Road based business (which also has established offices in Diss and a city based team in Central London).
Matt Reed joins the team as Business Development Executive, a new position at Steeles Law, bringing with him with 12 years’ direct sales experience in a variety of industries, including IT/software sales, education, advertising and financial services.
Gemma Pendleton is the new Marketing Manager, having previously worked for another Norwich based law firm in a similar role and with extensive prior experience in the voluntary, e-commerce and professional services sectors.
Commenting on the new appointments, Stephen Drake, Managing Principal, said: “Steeles Law has always considered itself as a modern, forward thinking firm. Over 20 years ago, we were the first local law firm to take a place on one of the modern business parks on the outskirts of the city – a move which is now being echoed by many other firms wishing to become more accessible to the modern client. With the appointment of Matt and Gemma, we are again adapting to the changing landscape of the legal profession, following the advent of the Legal Services Act last year, to future proof our business and ensure that we continue to provide the personal, high quality service that our clients have come to expect.”
Smaller Internet-focused businesses looking for funding could benefit from a new initiative backed by the European Investment Fund and the UK Government.
Targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with high growth potential, the “Notion Capital 2” fund stands at £62.9 million (€78.2 million), making it the largest of 11 Enterprise Capital Funds so far established by the UK Government. Welcoming the new initiative, the UK’s Business and Enterprise Minister, Mark Prisk, said: “It is absolutely vital that ambitious small firms can access the finance they need to expand and grow, and this new Enterprise Capital Fund will provide at least £40 million of funding to viable UK high-tech businesses.”
Notion Capital The Fund is managed by Notion Capital – a venture capital company with a track record of backing UK and European companies providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing services. According to Notion Capital Partner Jos White, the new Notion Capital 2 fund aims to back companies that Notion believes “can make it big”, while co-founder Stephen Chandler said that the company’s strategy is to only invest in cloud computing and SaaS, with the aim of identifying and supporting European companies that can become global leaders. The Notion Capital 2 fund is also expected to target investment at other types of Internet-based service companies and at businesses which use the Internet to provide their services.
The involvement of the UK Government and the European Investment Fund (EIF) is said to reflect their conviction that the strategy adopted by Notion “can help Europe take its fair share of the Cloud Computing economy”.
European Investment Fund The aim of the EIF is to support SMEs in Europe by helping them access finance. To that end, the EIF designs and develops venture capital and guarantees instruments specifically aimed at SMEs, with an emphasis on those involved in high-tech developments and in their early stages as companies.
The EIF has investments in more than 300 funds, making it the biggest player in European venture capital. At the end of 2011, it had nearly 160 operations, with guarantees amounting to some €14.7 billion (£11.8 billion). The €20 million (£16 million) committed by the EIF to Notion Capital 2 is provided under the EU’s Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme, which seeks to improve access to finance for the start-up and growth of SMEs and to promote investment in innovation.
Enterprise Capital Funds Enterprise Capital Funds (ECFs) are commercial funds investing in small, high-growth businesses seeking up to £2 million of equity finance. They are intended to “address a market weakness in the provision of equity finance to SMEs by using government funding alongside private sector investment to establish funds that operate within the ‘equity gap'”. That gap is due to a scarcity of equity capital in the £0.5-£2 million (€0.62-€2.5 million) bracket – the sort of amounts which some businesses struggle to raise.
The ECF initiative is managed by the fund management company Capital for Enterprise, which is owned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. In a ground-breaking move, the EIF has collaborated with Capital for Enterprise to structure Notion Capital 2 as an ECF. According to the Chief Executive Officer of Capital for Enterprise, Rory Earley, this latest initiative demonstrates the strength of the ECF programme – which has had a total of £200 million committed to it by the Government until 2014/15.
Further information Press releases and other materials can be found via the websites of:
Despite a further rise in exporting activity among both service sector and manufacturing firms, economic growth remains too weak, according to the latest Quarterly Economic Survey from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).
The survey for the second quarter (Q2) of 2012 shows that businesses are growing, but that balances across most measures have yet to return to pre-recession levels.
Comprising responses from 7805 businesses, the Q2 survey shows that there has been a surprisingly good improvement in exporting activity, suggesting that businesses are looking to overseas trade as a source of growth.
John Longworth, BCC’s Director General, urged the Government to take a bold and imaginative approach to boosting growth. He recommended measures such as the creation of a state-backed business bank and investment in infrastructure as critical to get the economy growing.
In detail, balances measuring exporting activity for the last three months among manufacturers rose seven points to +31%, and among service sector firms rose eight points to +24%.
The balance of both manufacturing and service sector firms reporting increases in forward-looking export orders increased.
Among manufacturers, the balance was up four points to +24%, and in the service sector up seven points to +19%, a level last seen in Q1 2007.
“While domestic growth continues to bump along the bottom, the silver lining is an increase in firms looking for export opportunities and, in many cases, with countries outside Europe,” Mr Longworth said. “Economic growth should be the Government’s main priority. As the eurozone crisis rumbles on, businesses are feeling the effects, and so growth is still weak.”
Steeles Law’s Head of Employment, Oliver Brabbins, considers the implications of a recent Court of Appeal decision in which an employee who set up a business competing with his employer was held not to be in breach of his contract of employment.
In this case, the employee (R) had been recruited straight from university as an applications consultant by a specialist IT consultancy firm, Customer Systems plc (CS). During the period of his employment, from 2001 to 2009, R was promoted a number of times and in his final year of employment he was responsible directly or indirectly for 59 per cent of the group’s total revenue. Crucially to the case, however, R’s contract of employment remained unchanged during the period of his employment. The original contract he entered into in 2001 contained a confidentiality provision, but no post-termination covenants to restrict his activities after his employment ended.
R resigned and left CS in February 2009. Both before and during his notice period, he had made preparations to establish a competing business, including discussing potential work with existing clients of CS.
CS brought a claim against R for breach of his contractual obligations, and breach of his fiduciary duty to the company by failing to report his contact with the clients to CS. A ‘fiduciary duty’ is essentially a duty to act in the company’s best interests and is a duty owed by all directors, but not necessarily employees, of a company. The company’s claim was upheld by the High Court.
R’s appeal to the Court of Appeal has since been successful. The Court did not agree with the judge’s conclusion that there was no material difference between R’s situation and that of a director. The judge had failed to take into account the express terms of R’s contract and had failed to properly consider whether, as an employee of the company, R had any fiduciary duties at all. In the Court’s view, there was nothing to suggest a fiduciary duty applied to R, and there was no express contractual term prohibiting him from contacting clients or setting up in competition.
Comment
This case illustrates very well the danger of failing to ensure that contractual documentation is regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that it accurately reflects the relationship between the parties and provides adequate protection for the employer. A contract of employment for a junior employee will rarely be suitable for an employee who has been promoted to a more senior position and who is likely to pose a much greater risk to the employer’s business when he or she departs.
Confidentiality provisions and post-termination restrictions (“restrictive covenants”) should always be carefully tailored, depending on the nature of the business and the position of the individual employee within that business. When an employee is promoted, proper consideration should be given to the question of whether a new contract of employment is appropriate to reflect the employee’s seniority.
The Ministry of Defence have issued new guidance for exports of military goods under the US-UK Defence Trade Co-operation Treaty.
This guidance specifically concerns completion of a new offline version of the MOD F680 when applying under Treaty auspices only.
If you intend to export certain specified military goods under the auspices of the US-UK Defence Trade Co-operation Treaty and have ‘approved community’ status (which is granted by the Ministry of Defence DE&S Infrastructure Security team) then you may be able to register for the Open General Export Licence (Exports under the US-UK Defence Trade Co-operation Treaty). This OGEL is issued by the Export Control Organisation (ECO).
Rules on how customs officials confiscate, store and destroy imports of counterfeit or pirated goods that infringe intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been clarified by the European Parliament.
Imports that infringe IPRs are a growing problem in the EU, due in particular to the rising volume of goods bought by EU citizens online and shipped to them from countries outside the Union.
Customs confiscations of such goods almost doubled between 2009 and 2010, and they are costing European businesses about €250 billion in lost sales each year.
The draft regulation on customs enforcement of IPRs, which the MEPs were debating, aims to make customs procedures more effective by laying down clear rules on the storage of infringing goods, who should bear the burden of proving that they infringe IPRs, and who should pay the costs of destroying them.
It does not, however, change the rules defining an “IPR infringement”.
Preliminary figures for 2010 show a 200% increase in small postal consignments confiscated by customs. The draft regulation introduces a simplified procedure to allow small consignments of suspected counterfeit or pirated goods to be destroyed more quickly.
Parliament amended the proposal to ensure that the person who would have received the goods has five days in which to object to their destruction and that buyers who bought them in good faith do not have to pay the cost of destroying them.
The Commission proposal does not define “small consignment”.
MEPs agreed that it should mean three items or fewer, together weighing below 2kg and contained in one package. Goods of a non-commercial nature contained in a travellers’ personal luggage will be excluded from the scope of the regulation.
The regulation also aims to clarify and strengthen rules on generic medicines in transit through the EU.
The text stresses that customs authorities must abide by the EU’s international commitments to ensure that these medicines are not delayed or confiscated unless there is “clear and convincing evidence that they are intended for sale in the Union”.
Which imports have recently been subject to reinforced border checks?
On 5 June 2012, the EU updated its list of imports of plant origin subject to reinforced border checks from 1 July 2012.
Controls performed at EU borders have recently been very successful and, consequently, the EU decided to adjust the intensity of controls for some products, while adding others to the list of imports of plant origin that are subject to an increased level of official controls at national level.
As a result of the improved level of compliance with EU requirements for pesticide residues, the control frequency for listed vegetables from the Dominican Republic is to be reduced from 50% to 20%. In light of the high level of non-compliance reported by Member States in 2011 in relation to Indian okra, the frequency of controls is to be increased from 10% to 50%.
Concerning new listings, due to the possible presence of aflatoxins, nutmeg and mace from Indonesia are to be added to the list of imports which are subject to reinforced border checks.
New EU Regulation 389/2012 replaces current procedures on the movement of excise goods with an improved electronic one.
The new regulation In the EU, Regulation 2073/2004/EC on administrative co-operation in the field of excise duties has provided a common system whereby, in order to ensure the correct application of legislation on excise duties and to combat their evasion and ensuing distortions in the internal market, Member States assist each other and co-operate with the European Commission. It was decided in 2011 that a number of changes needed to be made to that regulation in view of experiences to date and of recent developments. Given the number of changes seen to be necessary, it was decided that the 2004 Regulation should be entirely replaced rather than amended.
Accordingly, on 8 May 2012, the Council published Regulation 389/2012/EU. This contains new rules that remove the need for manual collection of operation statistics on the movement of excise goods, replacing the current procedures with an improved electronic one.
Computerising the information exchange between Member States on the excise of products (such as alcohol, tobacco and energy products) should make it easier and faster to collect excise duties that are due and improve Member States’ controls on the revenue.
What stays the same Exchange of information in excise matters is generally necessary in order to establish a true picture of the excise affairs of certain persons, but Member States are not at liberty to engage in “fishing expeditions” nor to request information that is unlikely to be relevant to the excise affairs of a given person or ascertainable group of persons.
For the purposes of a proper co-ordination of information flow, the provisions of Regulation 2073/2004/EU are maintained as regards a single point of contact in each Member State. Since more direct contacts between the authorities and officials of the Member States might be necessary for reasons of efficiency, the provisions on delegation and the designation of competent officials are also to be kept.
For the effective monitoring of excise procedures in cross-border movement, it has also been decided to continue to provide for the possibility of simultaneous controls by Member States and for the presence of officials of one State in the territory of another, within the framework of administrative co-operation.
The exchange of information with non-EU countries has proven beneficial for the correct application of legislation on excise duties and this too should be maintained, within the EU’s laws on data protection.
What changes The new regulation, which applied from 1 July 2012, enables Member States to better co-ordinate the use of the computerised Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS), which was introduced in 2010. The EMCS monitors the movement of excise goods for which duties still have to be paid. Automated procedures replace manual procedures wherever this information is electronically available within the EMCS. This, for example, includes information on road controls or interruptions in the movement of goods. Member States will not be entitled to refuse the provision of information solely on the basis of national rules on banking secrecy.
Feedback is an appropriate means to ensure continual improvement of the quality of the information exchanged and Regulation 389/2012/EU consequently provides a framework for the Member States to report back on how the system is working.
Member States must waive all claims for the reimbursement of expenses incurred in applying this regulation, with the exception of claims in respect of fees paid to experts. Traders should be able to speedily operate the verifications necessary for movements of excise goods. They will therefore be provided with the possibility of having the validity of excise numbers confirmed electronically through a central register operated by the Commission and fed by the information contained in national databases.
Seaweed bacteria may prevent tooth decay Scientists claim the use of microbes found on seaweed to see more effective results in the fight against tooth decay rather than any of the branded toothpastes.
NHS charging and rationing ‘may be needed’ More rationing of care and charging for services in the NHS need to be considered as it faces at least a decade of austerity, experts say.
A Great Yarmouth businessman has successfully completed one of the toughest and most notorious triathlon events in the world, the annual Escape from Alcatraz.
Pasta Foods managing director Karl Jermyn had to swim a mile and a half across San Francisco Bay from the legendary island prison and then cycle 18 miles and run another eight.
Even though his sponsored effort will raise hundreds of pounds for Great Yarmouth charity Centre 81, 40-year-old Karl admitted that he would have taken up the challenge for nothing.
“I’ve been in triathlons before. I like setting a goal, pushing the boundaries and seeing what you can achieve,” he said.
That attitude is also important to members of Centre, 81 – where he is a trustee – which supports people with physical and other disabilities and helps focus on their abilities rather than disabilities. He was delighted that his achievement helped their 30th anniversary appeal.
The swim from Alcatraz to the shore, something never successfully achieved by a prison inmate in its 29-year history, was the toughest obstacle.
“Once, it was thought to be impossible and the adrenaline kicks in when you plunge into icy waters with strong swirling currents and the potential for sharks,” said Karl. “Not everyone makes it. There are about 100 small craft standing by to help in an emergency.
“At first, it is silent. Then you hear the announcer on the far side encouraging swimmers ashore. Then you hear the cheers of the crowd and see the shore and that spurred me on.
“I had trained hard and always thought I would make it but it was a mixture of relief and joy to get there.”
There was no time to rest; he then had the gruelling cycling stage around the steep, undulating streets of San Francisco, followed by the demanding run, a mile of it on sand.
“Having completed the swim, nothing was going to stop me. Most of the 2,000 competitors are American and as I approached the finishing line it was brilliant to hear the announcer calling my name from Norwich, England.”
Karl clocked 3hr 53m 25s for the event, just under an hour of it on the swim. Afterwards, he received a medal, a recovery drink and, appropriate to his day job, a pasta meal.
Annual producer output inflation down from 2.9% in May to 2.3% in June; annual producer input inflation down from nil in May to -2.3% in June
Commenting on the producer price figures for June 2012, Caroline Williams CEO Norfolk Chamber said:
“The decline in producer price inflation shows that both output and input measures are at their lowest levels since 2009. These figures indicate consumer price inflation is likely to continue falling over the next few months, which will ease pressures facing businesses and individuals and boost consumer spending.
“In the face of tough fiscal austerity at home and difficult problems in the eurozone, falling inflation is the most important single factor underpinning demand in the UK. Nothing should be done to limit the fall in inflation, and the MPC should not use quantitative easing to try and prevent inflation falling below its target. In recent years inflation has been consistently above target and this has dampened economic activity. It is not certain that inflation will fall below target, but if this happened for a short period it would be welcome.
“Meanwhile, the economic situation remains difficult for Norfolk businesses. While the government perseveres with its deficit reduction plan, it should act forcefully to reallocate priorities towards growth. This means more deregulation, supporting business lending and moving towards the creation of a business bank.”