A talk which will be of interest to all practitioners advising about (and all litigation lawyers whose clients are ever affected by) business transfers, whether by sale or otherwise - whether involving companies, sole traders or partnerships, and including assumption of new partners. TUPE is well-known; what are far-less well-known are the common-law rules about the inheritance by one business of another's liabilities. For example, the development of the law may have now reached the stage where simple acquisition of any commercial web address may bring with it liability for all of its previous owners’ debts.

The talk will cover:-
    ► Buying a business - acquiring a debt?
    ► Pitfalls for new partners 
    ► Accepting or excluding liability
    ► Creditors’ third-party rights against acquirers
    ► What has this to do with gratuitous alienations?
    ► Does our law make sense?
 
Michael Upton has practised at the Scots Bar since 1991 in Commercial, Property, Planning, Agricultural, Telecoms and Tax disputes. He is accredited as a Mediator by C.E.D.R., a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and the Law Society of Scotland’s Examiner for candidates to be Civil Solicitor-Advocates.
 
Originally recorded on 23.5.19