It’s time to learn about the law. Source
Being a business owner means you need to be in control of all aspects of your organization. The last thing you want is for a situation to creep up on you and cause endless problems. For this reason, it’s really beneficial if you’re aware of various legal issues. Some of these are directly to do with your business, while others may affect you on a more personal level. Either way, being aware of the will help you avoid countless sticky situations.
Take a look below for the main issues that you need to think about:
Asset Protection
This is something that all business owners should think about as it can help you if something terrible happens. The brief definition of this is that you protect your personal assets from being touched if your business gets sued for a lot of money, or it goes bankrupt. You can get plenty more info from HackardLaw.com/estate-planning/asset-protection.shtml if you want to know the finer details. If you set this up, then it’s almost like you’ve insured your personal finances against any problems your business encounters. So, if something happens and your company suddenly owes loads of money, then your own assets can’t just be taken away from you to cover the costs against your will.
Copyright Infringement
All businesses need to be careful when it comes to copyright infringement or patents, trademarks - all that sort of thing. It’s imperative that you do some research to know if any businesses have copyrighted or patented certain words, phrases, images, and so on. For example, Starbucks has trademarked the term ‘frappuccino’. So, if you opened a small coffee shop and started selling frappuccinos, Starbucks could take legal action against you. The same goes for situations where you might steal someone’s logo or steal an idea that they have protected. It goes the other way as well; your business should have copyrights or trademarks and be aware of anyone stealing your stuff. I read this article here foxbusiness.com/features/when-you-need-a-trademark-and-or-copyright which goes into great detail explaining when you should have a trademark or copyright. It’s a legal area that all businesses need to be wary of.
All business owners need to know about employment laws. Source
Workplace Laws
I’ve bundled a lot of different things under one term here, just because it’s easier that way. You need to understand all the various laws that surround the workplace. Two of the most significant ones are employment laws and health & safety laws. All business owners are essentially legally bound to treat employees fairly and provide a safe working environment. Failure to do either of these things can result in expensive lawsuits. There are fundamental human rights laws that surround employment as well. For example, you can’t force people to work for less than the minimum wage or more than the legal amount of daily working hours. This is possibly the biggest area of law to read up on or get help with as it can be catastrophic if you do something wrong.
Get help from lawyers or attorneys to ensure you know the basic ins and outs of these legal issues. Doing this will definitely help your business avoid major complications.
