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Business Law: Analysis of UK Regulations and Legal Advice for JPM Ltd

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Added on 2024/07/01

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This report provides an analysis of UK business law, focusing on the implications of various regulations for JPM Company. It begins by discussing the sovereignty of Parliament and the historical and contemporary sources of English law, including the roles of government and the application of statutory and common law in justice courts. The report evaluates the English legal system, highlighting both its strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, it offers an informal report to JPM, detailing the potential implications and impact of health and safety regulations, equal opportunities regulations, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including the duties of directors in these areas. The report also provides legal advice to Champion Ltd. and Amber Ltd. for their respective cases, including an alternate legal advice to Amber Ltd. and a comparison of the two solutions.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................ 3
Task 1......................................................................................................................................... 4
Task 2......................................................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................ 16
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Introduction
English law is a set of rules, which are created by the state and are made to bind within the
jurisdiction of state. The state uses different type of sanction to enforce the laws with
authority. In addition, business law is that branch of English law that are related with the
business activities. The research project discusses about business law. The sovereignty of
Parliament is will be explained with the historical and contemporary sources of English law.
The government’s role in law making of the United Kingdom will be discussed in this
project. The legislative process of the Parliament will be highlighted with evaluation of the
English legal system.
An informal report will be given to JPM regarding the implication of different aspects of
health and safety, equality and data protection. The legal advices will provided to Champion
Ltd. and Amber Ltd. for their corresponding cases. An alternate legal advice will be given to
Amber Ltd. and comparison will be made regarding the two solutions.
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Section 1: Nature of legal systems and legislations impacting business
Task 1
(a) Discuss the meaning of ‘Parliament is Sovereign’ and the various sources of UK
Laws [P1]
The laws of the United Kingdom are statutory and the courts are responsible for interpretation
and application of the laws that are acquired from delegated legislation and Acts of
Parliament. The courts must respect Parliament while exercising this power. According to
Allen and Kraakman (2016), the statement ‘Parliament is sovereign’ expresses Parliament as
the superior law-making body of the United Kingdom. The Parliament holds the authority to
amend, create, or discontinue any law. The courts cannot overrule the legislation of
Parliament. The statutes or the Acts of the Parliament are the focus for the courts while
interpretation of cases. The statutes limit the freedom of the court and in case of gap in the
injustice, the court cannot create law to fill the gap. The courts recommend the Parliament for
amending the legislation. Therefore, the Parliament sovereignty is the most important part of
constitution of the United Kingdom (Black, 2015).
The English laws are the rules created by the state to bind with the jurisdiction and authority
of the state. The English laws are antique, resulted from lengthy evaluation, and untouched
by the Roman laws. The English law gives creative powers and authority for the Parliament
and the Parliament creates most of the laws in the United Kingdom contained in Acts of
Parliament or statutes. There are three important sources of law namely, European law,
Parliament and the Courts. The “Customs, Common Law and the Law of Equity” are
considered as the historical sources of English law and the contemporary sources of English
law are the “case law, legislation and the E.U. laws” (Palmer, 2015).
Precedents: The origin of English legal system can be traced from 1066, and the courts of
the United Kingdom follow the previous cases for making future judgements. The Precedents
are the important source of law. The new principles are developed in this way and the
common laws are codified or made statutory. However, the senior courts have retained
limited amount of creative powers, in the form of tort and contract law.
Acts of Parliament: Tthe authority of Parliament creates the English Laws. The direct or
primary legislation comprises Acts of Parliament, which develops from the bill or proposal
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that reaches Parliament. Government department or local authority develops the indirect or
delegated legislation, which have received the power to legislate by Parliament (Vagts et al.,
2015).
International Courts: The case laws are created by the International Courts, which are also
known as common law. The criminal, civil, and administrative jurisdiction is under the
‘Magistrate Court’, whereas the ‘Crown Court’ only covers criminal jurisdiction and
‘Divisional Court’ appellate jurisdiction from courts and tribunals. The ‘Court of Appeal’
consists of ‘criminal division’ and ‘civil division’ and they appeal to the ‘Supreme Court’.
The ‘Country Court’ covers civil jurisdiction and the ‘High Court’ consists jurisdiction from
Queen’s Bench, Chancery, and Family.
European Court: According to Rembar (2015), the laws enforced by the European Court is
the main source of law in the United Kingdom and other European states, since 1972 and
under the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972), European Union law is a part of
laws of the United Kingdom. The institutions of the European Union are the “Council of
Ministers, European Council, The European Commission, The European Parliament and the
European Court of Justice”, and they all create European law.
Common Law: The centralised legal system and variation of English law was unavailable at
the time of development of the Common Law. The judges appointed by the court had the task
of combining the system of law to apply to the whole country. Therefore, the Common Law
is developed after the principles of previous cases and is applied to the future court cases. The
Common law relates to the laws made by judges.
Customs: The Customs are the oldest form of law dated Pre 1066 from which the case law
and common law have evolved. The case laws evolved from the justifications given to the
relevant cases. Therefore, the courts can legislate concerning previous cases, and not for the
future cases with different cases (Singer, 2018).
Personnel in the Legal system: The Courts hears the arguments of both the parties, and
barrister or solicitor-advocate represents the cases. The solicitors usually do not hold the right
to appear in the High Court, however after training they can represent. The judge hears the
case and decides the winning party. The unsuccessful party can get a solicitor to reinforce the
claim. The judges, solicitors, and barristers are the personnel involved in the legal system
(d’Entreves, 2017).
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(b) Explain the role of government in law-making and how statutory and common
law is applied in the justice courts [P2]
The Parliament and the European Union plays an important role in law making, however the
courts also have a minor law-making role.
Procedure of creating the ‘Acts of Parliament’: The government ministers and the
members of parliament have given the authority to put forward the ‘Private Member’s Bills’
and are related with non-party political issues. The political issues are discussed over to draft
the bill. A government bill or proposal is issued in ‘green paper’ in the pre-legislative stage
of legislative process, which after consultation are laid down in ‘white paper’ (Bulchandani,
2017). The bill first reaches the Parliament’s ‘House of Commons’ and then passes through
the same stages in ‘House of Lords’. In the first reading, the name and title of the bill is
announced and another date is set for the second reading. In the second reading, speech is
presented by proposing minister, followed by discussions and debates. The bill passes to the
committee stage if the majority of members vote in its favour, and the bill is examined and
the standing committee proposes amendments. Lastly, at third reading the discussion is made
about the bill. The ‘House of Commons’ suggest superficial changes, however major changes
are suggested by the ‘House of Lords’. The bill becomes an Act, after passing through both
the houses and receives ‘Queen Royal Assent’.
Application of ‘Common Law’ by justice courts: As put forward by Beatty et al., (2018)
the common law or the case law has evolved from the past cases over a span of time, in a
haphazard manner. The courts therefore are said to follow the ‘binding precedents’. The
common law are contemplated from the judgements of the past cases and the court has the
authority to legislate the previous cases. This makes the common law inadequate for
judgement of future problems. Therefore, the civil and criminal laws are codified and
converted into statutory form.
Application of ‘Statutory Law’ by justice courts: The judicial principles of statutory
interpretation are namely the contextual approach, the literal rule, the golden rule, the
mischief rule, and the purposive approach. The ‘ejusdem generis rule’ forms the part of
contextual approach and it states that disputed words must be interpreted within the context
of the statute. The literal rule requires the court to take words at their face value in cases of
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where the meaning is clear but without ambiguity. This rule helps the court to solve practical
cases. In addition, the mischief rule allows court to adopt a meaning, which enables the
statute to fulfil the intended purpose. The golden rule states that in case of ambiguous statute,
the count can enforce the least ridiculous meaning to avoid any unavoidable result. The
purposive approach helps the court to interpret the statute by addressing the purpose behind
the statute (Cheeseman, 2016).
Evaluation of English Legal System: The English legal system consists of courts and
Parliament. The parties during disputes are able to represent themselves to the courts as the
courts are reachable and the judges are impartial to the judgements, which are positive
features of courts of English Legal System. However, the judges remain detached from the
issues of the case and their judgement depends upon the legal skills possessed by the lawyer.
This is the drawback of the courts. The most positive aspect of Acts of Parliament is that the
bills are evaluated and scrutinised before it becomes an Act. The Parliament does not follow
democracy in electing the members of Parliament through government and the legislative
process is lengthy process and implicates negatively when the laws are to be enforced
immediately (Bell, 2018).
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Task 2
In an informal report provide appropriate advice to JPM using scenario examples
where the company with regards to potential implication and impact of the following:
[P3]
Report for providing advice to JPM for potential implication and impact of duties of
director regarding Health and Safety Regulation, Equal Opportunities Regulation and
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The responsibilities of director as per specified in Companies Act are discussed as
follows:
Directors’ common law and equitable duties before the CA 2006: As put forward by
Crane and Matten (2016), there are two types of duties namely, ‘a duty of care’ and ‘fiduciary
duty’. The ‘duty of care’ enforces the directors to act with reasonable care while carrying out
business and the ‘fiduciary duty’ direct the directors to act with good faith in dealing with the
JPM Company.
Director’ duties since CA 2006: the director should act within the powers, promote the
success of JPM Company, avoid biasness, exercise independent judgements, exercise skills,
care, and diligence, and avoid conflict of interest among workers in workplace. The director
should refuse any third party benefits and declare an interest in the company’s transaction
(Clarkson et al., 2014).
1. Health and Safety Regulation
The basis of British Health and Safety Regulation are “The Management of Health and Safety
at work Regulation 1999”, it empowers duties to director for making risk assessment of
workforce regarding health and safety (Davidson et al., 2015). It helps a director to appoint
competent persons to oversee workplace health and safety, provide the employees with
training on occupational health and safety and operating a well-formulated written policy.
The “Workplace Regulation 1992” ensures the directors to provide adequate light, heat, and
ventilation at workplace and provide clean staff facilities and safe passageways at workplace.
The risk assessment of workplace uses the display screen equipment and provide regular
eyesight test for the workers who use computers for significantly long time.
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According to Halliday and Shaffer (2015), the directors should ensure suitable personal
protective equipment for protection under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work
Regulations 1992. Protections under manual handling risks are provided against the “Manual
handling Operations Regulations 1992”and safety against usage of work equipment under
the “Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998”. The director of JPM
Company should report the work-related injuries to Health and Safety Executive (HSE) under
the regulation of “Reporting of Injuries, Diseases, and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations
1995”. The directors under the initiative of “The Working Time Regulation 1998” maintain
the working hours of the employees.
2. Equal Opportunities Regulation
Equality at workplace should be maintained by directors to recognise and respect the
diversity of employees and initiate procedures to suit all the employees of JPM Company.
The “The Equality Act 2010” is the largest piece of anti-discrimination legislation in the
United Kingdom. This act covers all the areas to be protected against discrimination, such as
age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, race, religion/belief, gender reassignment, marriage
and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity. There are different types of discrimination,
which the director should take initiative for avoiding those, such as direction discrimination
of person against each other and indirect discrimination of favouring a group of employees
over others (Glover and Doss, 2017).
The associative discrimination or perceptive discrimination should be avoided because of
someone’s protected characteristics. The director should also provide protection against third
party harassment, victimisation, and disability discrimination. This act provides opportunities
to every employee while enjoying the rights in workplace. As opined by Jones (2017), it
helps employees to share their opinion freely to the management and their valuable opinion
creates a source of internal assessment of the process. The issues regarding the daily activities
are resolved on a quickly and therefore the productivity increases. The performance of
employees improves when they are treated with respect and trust is build among them.
Therefore, the directors of JPM Company must ensure that the company adheres strictly to
the norms of the act and provides protection against discrimination.
3. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
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The GDPR has replaced the “Data Protection Act” in 2018. The principles of GDPR guide
the director to incorporate lawfulness, fairness, and transparency with the data. JPM
Company should collect the minimum amount of data and the usage of data must be limited
to certain purposes (Davies, 2015). The employee information relating to an individual's
“racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion/ beliefs, trade union membership, physical
or mental health or condition, sexual life, alleged or actual criminal activity and criminal
record” should be protected by company, in spite of availability of such data in public
domain. The data stored must be regularly updated and kept accurate. The company should
not store the data longer than their needed purpose. The company should store the data safely
and securely and the company should ensure integrity and confidentiality of data. JPM
Company should register with the “Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)” as a data
controller for getting consent from data subjects to process their data for different purpose.
The director should ensure that the data must be stored under European Economic Area and
avoid storing electronic on cloud storage, as specified under GDPR. The director of JPM
Company should keep enough documentation that they should be accountable to the process
of data protection (Kraakman and Armour, 2017).
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Section 2: Legal solutions to business problems
In both the cases, you are to provide appropriate legal advice based on case law or
statutes: [P4, P5]
Case 1:
(i) Champion Ltd. on whether the creditors have legal powers to do what they
threatening and the process of liquidation.
Case 1 explained that Champion Ltd is a company based in London. The Company wanted
to relocate its site to North London and received cash payments from its creditors for the
same. After that, Champion Ltd. shifted to the desired location and then faced financial crisis.
Due to the financial crises, it defaulted in the payments for debts and loans to the creditors.
The creditors did not care about the financial issues faced by Champion Ltd. and they
threatened to apply for ‘liquidation’ to court.
Legal powers of Creditors: Under the “Law of Property Act 1925”, the creditors have given
the right to exercise receivership over the property of the company, who fails to repay the
debts. Therefore, the creditors hold the power to curb the operation of the company and
control over the operation to facilitate the process of ‘liquidation’ to ensure full repayment of
the debt. In addition, “Enterprise Act 2002” or “Insolvency Act 1986” can be used for
regulation of insolvency, and the “Article 211 of the Companies Act (CAP113)” gave the
detailed instruction about the circumstances in which any company can be liquidated by the
creditors (Frank and Bix, 2017).
Process of Liquidation: Liquidation is the process of realisation of a company’s asset and
capital. They are distributed among shareholders and creditors according to the strict rules of
priority. The asset of Champion Ltd. will be distributed among the creditors, with reference
to the case. There are two types of liquidation process namely compulsory and voluntary
liquidation process. The compulsory liquidation is undertaken by court under the “Insolvency
Act 1986” after the creditors give petition to the court and the court appoints an officer for
distribution of asset and capital (Kubasek et al., 2015). The voluntary liquidation allows the
creditors to appoint a liquidator for asset distribution, as Champion Ltd. has turn insolvent.
Case 2:
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(ii) Amber Ltd. on the possibility of getting the injunction
Case 2 explained that Mr. Anderson was the CFO of Amber Ltd. and he was under the
contract of “Employment Law”. It has detailed specification about twelve months’ notice
period before the contract termination. However, Mr. Anderson has ceased working in Amber
Ltd. without serving the notice period specified in the contract. After that, Amber Ltd. wanted
to seek injunction for preventing Mr. Anderson from commencing employment with other
services and alleged him of breaching his duties of fidelity, trust, good faith, and confidence.
Possibility of getting Injunction: Injunctions are the orders from the court, which stops the
defendant from doing something or require some positive act. Amber Ltd. can use injunctions
for employment disputes. It can help Amber Ltd. to stop Mr. Anderson against breaching the
non-competent clauses in their employment contract. The management of Amber Ltd. must
reach court and prove that the claimant is morally entitled to the remedy and justice should be
imposed on the defendant. The court can then grant the injunction. The injunction is provided
by the courts under “Law of Equity” and in this case, Amber Ltd. can get the injunction as
Mr. Anderson has breached the employment contract. Amber Ltd. will receive damages for
the financial loss encountered by the company when Mr. Anderson ceased his work and did
not serve twelve months notice period. Amber Ltd. will get the injunction over Mr.
Anderson; however, he will lose fidelity, trust, good faith, and confidence from the employer.
The injunction will prevent Mr. Anderson from may not get employment opportunities from
other employers as well.
In respect of Case-2, recommend an alternative legal solution to what is suggested in a
(ii) based on a different legal framework. You should try compare and contrast the
effectiveness of these solutions. [P6]
Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR): The Alternate Dispute Resolution or ADR is an
attempt made by the parties resolves the disputes without going to courts. It is a less
adversarial in nature to resolve the dispute and the disputing parties can continue the relations
even after the dispute resolution are over. ADR is considered as a less costly method and
hassle-free method for dispute resolution. The parties can avoid paying huge court fees for
dispute handling procedures. The parties do not face the difficulties of visiting courts.
Therefore, ADR is a less complicated in nature and better option than any other dispute
resolution process (Mann and Roberts, 2015).
12

Types of Alternate Dispute Resolution: The different forms of ADR are “conciliation,
adjudication, arbitration, negotiations, mediation, and ombudsman services”. Arbitration is
the most common method of dispute settlement in which the parties voluntarily submit their
dispute to third party and agree to be bound by their decision. There are two types of
arbitration namely, commercial arbitration and code arbitration. The commercial arbitration is
for trade association on their members imposes the term of contracts between businesses and
code arbitration. Adjudication is taken by adjudicator to look into the written evidence that
the complainant puts forward against the other party.
According to Goodman and Flaxman (2016), the legal, banking, insurance and financial
services appoints ombudsman for resolving problems in Ombudsmen Services. The process
of conciliation dictates the parties to appoint a conciliator for finding solution of disputes.
The conciliator cannot enforce their decision and if the parties refuse the decision, cases
reach to employment tribunal. A mediator helps the parties to establish proper and
understandable communication to resolve their problem through mediation process. In
addition, Negotiations are a type of ADR in which, the two parties attempt to resolve their
dispute through their own representatives of Trade Unions and Employers.
Benefits of Alternate Dispute Resolution: ADR is adopted by the parties for resolving the
disputes, instead of going to courts. It is a less adversarial in nature, in case of dispute
resolution and the disputing parties can continue the relations even after the dispute
resolution are over. ADR is considered as a less costly method for dispute resolution as
parties can avoid paying huge court judgement fees for dispute handling procedures. There
are many types of dispute resolution process under ADR, from which company can choose
the best option. The process is less time-consuming as compared with other court cases. The
process of ADR is flexible enough for customising according to the needs of parties. The
most important function of ADR is that is provides a friendly base for continuing the business
relationship after the resolution of disputes and it preserves the goodwill of the companies
(Le Sueur et al., 2016).
In respect to Case 2, an alternate legal solution suggested to Amber Ltd. is Negotiation
process under the “Alternate Dispute Resolution”, based on different legal framework. The
process of negotiation will allow both the parties Mr. Anderson and Amber Ltd. to settle their
differences by themselves. The process of negotiation does not involve the interference of
third parties and can be initiated by either or both the parties (Roach, 2016). The parties
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involved can have an advocate to speak in favour of the parties and negotiate on their behalf.
In this case, Mr. Anderson and Amber Ltd. should opt for cooperative negotiation and try to
find appropriate solution that will address their concerns and needs. The objective is to make
both the parties arrive at a win-win outcome.
Comparison between Injunction and Negotiation: The process of injunction issued by
Amber Ltd. will involve courts. Amber Ltd. will receive damages against the loss
encountered while Mr. Anderson ceased his work. Mr. Anderson will also lose good faith,
fidelity, trust, and confidence from the employer and this will prevent Mr. Anderson from
getting employment from other employers. This form of dispute resolution is time consuming
and parties have to waste many resources in order to receive the judgements of the court. This
will ruin the goodwill of the company and will destroy the employment opportunities of Mr.
Anderson. Considering Mr. Anderson was a senior employee and he had access to all the
personal data of the company, negotiation process of ADR must be considered by Amber Ltd.
This form of dispute resolution will not harm any of the parties and result in a win-win
outcome. The issues of both parties will be addressed and resolved in due course of time.
Therefore, negotiation process is better for both the parties and will benefit them in case,
Amber Ltd. opt for negotiation process instead of injunction.
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Conclusion
The research project contained various discussions of business law. The sovereignty of
Parliament is explained with respect to the United Kingdom. The contemporary and historical
sources of the English law are discussed. The role Parliament and courts are discussed in the
areas of law making and the personnel of legal system are related with the hierarchy of
courts. The legislative process of the Parliament is discussed with different stages of
legislative process. The evaluation of the English legal system is made.
An informal report is provided to JPM regarding the duties and responsibilities of director
and the implication of different aspects of health and safety, equality and data protection. The
legal advices are provided to Champion Ltd. and Amber Ltd. for their corresponding cases of
liquidation and injunction. An alternate legal advice is given to Amber Ltd. and comparison
is made regarding the two solutions provided.
15

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