Every company should list its company registration number, place
of registration and registered office address on its website as a
result of an update to the legislation of 1985. The information,
which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order
forms and in emails. Such information is already required on
'business letters' but the duty is being extended to websites,
order forms and electronic documents.
The change is being made by a Statutory Instrument that is
expected to be passed on Thursday to implement a European law, the
First Company Law Amendment Directive, into UK law. According to a
Department of Trade and Industry spokesperson, the law will take
effect on 1st January, one day later than the Directive requires.
(The Companies (Registrar, Languages and Trading Disclosures)
Regulations 2006 has now been passed.)
The information is likely to appear in the footer of every email
sent from a company, to avoid having to decide whether each email
amounts to a 'business letter' or not. Many companies do this
already because the term 'business letters' was thought likely to
include emails even without this new clarification.
For websites, contrary to the fears of some, the specified
information does not need to appear on every page. Again, many
websites will already list the required information, perhaps on
their 'About us' or 'Legal info' pages.
The E-commerce Regulations, passed in 2002, require that certain
information is listed on a website, including, "where the service
provider is registered in a trade or similar register available to
the public, details of the register in which the service provider
is entered and his registration number, or equivalent means of
identification in that register".
That has been understood as including the company registration
number and place of registration. The E-commerce Regulations also
required a note of "the geographic address at which the service
provider is established" – which many have taken to mean the
registered office address.
However, the wording in the E-commerce Regulations is ambiguous
compared to the new provisions. Further, many organisations' sites
currently omit the information, perhaps making the mistake of
thinking that the E-commerce Regulations do not apply to websites
that do not sell online (in fact they apply to almost all
websites).
Information that must be on your website: an aide
memoire
The following is the minimum information that must be on any
company's website (from OUT-LAW's guide, The
UK's E-commerce Regulations).
- The name, geographic address and email address of the service
provider. The name of the organisation with which the customer is
contracting must be given. This might differ from the trading
name. Any such difference should be explained – e.g. "XYZ.com is
the trading name of XYZ Enterprises Limited."
It is not sufficient to include a 'contact
us' form without also providing an email address and geographic
address somewhere easily accessible on the site. A PO Box is
unlikely to suffice as a geographic address; but a registered
office address would. If the business is a company, the
registered office address must be included.
- If a company, the company's registration
number should be given and, under the Companies Act, the
place of registration should be stated (e.g. "XYZ
Enterprises Limited is a company registered in England and Wales
with company number 1234567")
- If the business is a member of a trade or professional
association, membership details, including any registration number,
should be provided.
- If the business has a VAT number, it should be
stated – even if the website is not being used for e-commerce
transactions.
- Prices on the website must be clear and unambiguous. Also,
state whether prices are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.
Finally, do not forget the Distance Selling Regulations which
contain other information requirements for online businesses that
sell to consumers (B2C, as opposed to B2B, sales). For details of
these requirements, see our guide, The
Distance Selling Regulations - An Overview.
For help with email notices, such as disclaimers, see OUT-LAW's
guide on Email notices.
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