As a reminder to all businesses using websites and emails as a part of their trading activities, there are issues to consider when deciding on what is displayed for the public to see and why.

Rules for all websites

Any memberships and affiliations that are listed, must be kept up to date so if your website was written a while ago, you need to check that all the memberships are still current.

If there are any ‘prescribed’ or ‘sensitive’ words on the website, you need to be able to justify their use – for example ‘King’ or ‘Dentist’ – you must also be aware of trade marks when writing the text.

You need to show the VAT registration number of the business if you are registered.

If you are trading directly with customers you need to state your conditions of sale.

Information legally required on websites for companies:

• Country of Registration (usually “England and Wales”)
• Company name AND all trading names used by the company
• The company’s registered number
• The company’s registered office address
• The company’s trading address
• If the company has been set up as an investment company this should be stated
• If the name of one director is shown as part of the statutory information, all directors must be listed

Information that needs to be shown on emails

• Company and trading names
• Company’s registered number
• Company’s registered office
• VAT number if applicable

It is always sensible to have a disclaimer at the bottom of business emails stating that the information is confidential and only for the eyes of the addressee.

Please keep this information in mind both when designing your own websites/email AND when looking at other people’s websites – it may be that some traders are showing affiliations and memberships which they do not have the rights to display so it is important to double check.