A government legislation introduced earlier this year now deems that companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in e-mail footers.

However, it’s believed a large number of businesses have not implemented the necessary changes to coincide with this legislation, and failure to meet certain guidelines is a breach of the Companies Act 1985, which can result in substantial fines for authorising the issuance of a non-compliant document.

As a result of an update to the legislation of 1985, every company should list its company registration number, place of registration, and registered office address on its website. The information, which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order forms and in e-mails. Such information is already required on business letters but the duty is being extended to websites, order forms and electronic documents.

In most cases, the required information normally appears in the footer of every e-mail sent from a company, to avoid having to decide whether each e-mail amounts to a business letter or not.

For websites, the specified information does not need to appear on every page, and many sites will already list the required information on their "about us" or "legal info" pages.

The information that must be on your website includes the company name, geographic address and e-mail address. The name of the organisation with which the customer is contracting must also be given. In some cases this can differ from the trading name, for example, "ABC.com is the trading name of ABC Global Limited".

It is not sufficient to include a “contact us” form without also providing an e-mail address and geographic address somewhere easily accessible on the site. If you are a company, the company’s registration number should be given and, under the Companies Act, the place of registration should be stated. For example, "ABC Global Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with registered company number 1234567".

If the business is a member of a trade or professional association (like PROMOTA), membership details, including any registration number, should be provided, and if the business has a VAT number, this should also be stated – even if the website is not being used for ecommerce transactions.

Many within the promotional merchandise sector will have either an on-line shopping or catalogue facility – in these cases prices on the website must be clear and unambiguous, stating whether prices are inclusive of tax and delivery costs. With the government clamping down on this legislation and issuing hefty fines, PROMOTA would urge all P&P readers to check they meet the necessary requirements.

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COMPANIES ACT REGULATIONS AS OF JANUARY 1ST 2007

Know the facts

A company must state its name, in legible lettering, on the following:

• all business letters, order forms
• all notices and other official publications
• all bills of exchange, promissory notes, endorsements, cheques and orders for money or goods purporting to be signed by, or on behalf of, the company
• all bills of parcels, invoices, receipts and letters of credit

On all of its business letters (including emails), order forms or any of the company’s websites, the following must show in legible lettering:

• place of registration
• registered number
• registered office address