Educational
Business structure and registration
Which legal form you trade through decides who carries the liability, how ownership moves, and what the business is able to do.
5 practices · 4 common gaps
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Company Compliance Centre
Very little of it is complicated. What makes it hard is that each area needs an owner, a record and a rhythm — and the areas without one are the areas that produce the surprise.
What applies to my company?
This produces a reading list, not a determination. Regulatory obligations depend on your circumstances and should be verified with the relevant authority or a qualified legal practitioner.
01
How is the business set up?
The structure decides who carries liability when something goes wrong.
02
How many people work in the business?
03
Where do you sell?
04
Do you collect customer personal data?
Names, phone numbers, addresses, photographs and payment identifiers all count.
05
Do you employ staff?
06
Do you use contractors or freelancers?
Including designers, developers and anyone producing work for the business.
07
Do you sell products or services to consumers?
08
Do you operate in a regulated activity?
Financial services, healthcare, food and drugs, education, security, telecoms and transport are common examples.
All areas
Each topic explains what it covers, when it becomes relevant, what good practice looks like, where the common gaps are, and when to involve a lawyer.
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Which legal form you trade through decides who carries the liability, how ownership moves, and what the business is able to do.
Every commercial relationship is governed by something. The only question is whether it is a document you chose or a set of assumptions you did not.
Written terms, correct classification, statutory deductions and records - the four things every employment claim tends to turn on.
Registration, records and returns. This is awareness of the framework a business sits in - it is not tax advice, and rates and deadlines change.
The duties that attach the moment your business decides why and how personal information is processed.
Brand, content, software and invention - what the business owns, what it merely licenses, and what it never secured at all.
How you describe, price, sell and stand behind what you offer - and how you handle it when a customer says you got it wrong.
Some activities need permission before they begin. Which permissions depend entirely on what you do and where you do it.
Records are how a business proves what happened. Almost every other area on this page is evidenced by something in this one.
Who decides, how decisions are recorded, and the duties that attach to the people holding control.
Most commercial disputes are decided by what was agreed and recorded long before anyone was angry.
Insurance does not remove a legal obligation. It decides whether the business survives one that crystallises.