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• Agricultural Law Association (ALA) was founded in 1975 to provide a forum for professionals serving agriculture – lawyers, surveyors, accountants, bankers, farm business consultants and others – to support each other in their specialisms. It is now the UK's leading cross-disciplinary organisation dedicated to the interests of professional people in rural business. There is also a blog hosted on the ALA site called MossBlog, written by Joanne Moss, a former Chairman of ALA, on some of the issues faced by rural business and by professionals advising in it.

Arts Law

• Artquest provides practical support to visual artists and craftspeople with over 800 web pages of practical support, critical articles and opportunities covering every aspect of a visual artist or craftsperson's career.
• ArtLaw contains over 300 legal related articles written by Henry Lydiate, art and law specialist, for Art Monthly magazine since its launch in 1976.
• Images of Justice comes from artist Trevor Goring with historical and modern pictures of lawyers and images of justice. The site includes major sections covering historical European portraits, Women in Law, Pre-Christian Law, USA Justice, and Contemporary Portraits. Each section shows a series of thumbnail pictures which can be expanded into full size images.

Business, Commercial, Company Law, E-Commerce, Financial and Corporate Resources, Competition, Cybercrime, Compliance

• Company Law Forum is a new site from LexisNexis intended to provide a Web 2.0 environment for the legal and business community to share thoughts, useful links, and have discussions on company law related issues. The content of the site is free to access although you have to register for it. As it says on the site "The new website offers users the opportunity to discuss and debate current issues such as the implications of sections covering proxies for FTSE100 companies and the problems of the 48-hour deadline for appointment. Other topics include the delay of the final raft of commencements until 2009, the impact of potential derivative actions on D&O insurance and how the changes to directors’ duties interact with the duties on insolvency through a Web 2.0 interface." There are several substantive articles on these topics already. There is a directory of registered users which allows users to contact each other privately. (Tip - if you want others to know who you are and to contact you, use your real name as the user name, complete with capital letters). Apparently there will also be News and current awareness headline feeds.
• Competition Commission is an independent public body established by the Competition Act 1998. The Commission replaced the Monopolies and Mergers Commission ("MMC") on 1 April 1999. The Commission has taken on the former MMC role of carrying out inquiries into matters referred to it by the other UK competition authorities concerning monopolies, mergers and the economic regulation of utility companies.
• Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) is a specialist judicial body with cross-disciplinary expertise in law, economics, business and accountancy. Under United Kingdom law, the function of the CAT is to hear and decide appeals and other applications or claims involving competition or economic regulatory issues. It came into force on 1 April 2003.
• Business Link is managed by the DTI and includes information on finance, grants, employment and health and safety and other business topics.
• Ofcom is the new regulator for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services. Ofcom inherits the duties of the five previous regulators the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the Independent Television Commission, Oftel, the Radio Authority and the Radiocommunications Agency. There are already quite a number of reports and proposals on the site.
• Global Competition Forum is a new site set up by the International Bar Association. You can click on a region in the world map and be linked directly to the most current versions of the world's competition laws, national competition authorities and international organisations. There are also articles, speeches, and commentary. This site facilitates the IBA's work with the International Competition Network (ICN). The site provides coverage of the competition laws and practice of 126 countries: 24 African jurisdictions, 29 Mid-East and Eastern regimes, 43 European systems, 14 in North and Central America, 12 in Southern America and 4 in Oceana. In each case, the most up-to-date text of the country's governing legislation is displayed, together with all relevant forms, regulations, interpretative guidelines, annual reports, co-operation agreements and press releases. There are over 600 links to all of the world's known competition agency sites, as well as to those maintained by international organisations such as the World Bank, World Trade Organisation (WTO), OECD and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as well as multiple academic institutions.
• Bank of England
• Companies House with information about the functions, targets and policies. The site also includes the full text of all 32 Notes for Guidance, a FAQ section and a search facility for disqualified directors. The site is also now offering a number of general Companies House forms and also Limited Liability Partnership forms which can be accessed and filled in, online (they are in pdf format). They are then printed off (by you), signed and returned in the post to Companies House.
• UK Corporator is an expert system for generating limited company formation documents online which can be used either by the person wanting to set up a limited company, or by a solicitor acting on his/her behalf. The system operates on a question and answer basis to obtain the information needed for the forms, providing full explanatory notes at each stage so that the user is in effect "coached" in the process of preparing the documents, and taking account of the relevant Companies Act provisions. There is also a considerable amount of free information available on the site relating to the incorporation process for people to use whether or not they are using the system on a paid basis. At the end of the generation process, the user can decide whether he or she wishes to go ahead with the formation and pay the 49.99 (plus Government charges payable direct to Companies House) required for the finished documents and delivering them automatically. All content has been written by the directors of the company who are also solicitors. The original system has already been widely used in Australia as Incorporator.com.au.
• ebizlaw is the latest specialised site from Fox Williams LLP (they have a whole series of specialised sites). Described as "Legal advice from ebusiness and online community specialists Fox Williams" the site offers current news in these topics and basic briefing documents. You can also sign up for a regular (free) email update along the same lines.
• Corporate Law and Governance is a blog from Robert Goddard of Aston Business School Birmingham. It provides news from the UK and beyond concerning corporate law and governance. These areas are broadly defined to include capital market regulation, financial reporting and the legal environment in which companies (of all sizes) operate.
• Financial Services Authority, previously the Securities and Investment Board (SIB) provides information about the regulation of investment business in the UK, the supervision of banks in the UK and listed money market institutions.
• Finance and Tax Tribunals include the Vat and Duties Tribunals, Special Commissioners and Financial Services & Markets Tribunal. The site has been designed to meet the needs of those wishing to appeal against decisions of HM Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue or to refer matters relating to certain decisions of the Financial Services Authority. The Tribunals are part of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. There are decisions on the site which can be searched by categories of VAT, Customs Duties, Excise Duties, Insurance Premium Tax, Landfill Tax and Special Commissioners.
• Financial Times - a vast amount of information including company briefings and up to date share prices and currency prices.
• Black Knight Associates (BKA) was formed in 2008 by data, accountancy and legal professionals increasingly concerned by the cost of accurate and consistent forensic audit reports required by commercial and consumer clients in their pursuit of financial mis-selling cases. They provide an online service that allows easy and comprehensive investigation of loan and mortgage irregularities. As well as the paid-for products, there is a free calculator on the site (called Pinky Pig) which calculates how much a loan or mortgage will actually cost based on loan amount, APR, number of payments per year and payment period.
• London Stock Exchange
• The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers is the regulatory body which administers the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers. Its central objective is to ensure equality of treatment and opportunity for all shareholders in takeover bids. The Panel was set up in 1968 and since then has handled some 7,000 announced offers and also many others where no offer was, in the event, announced. The site includes the takeover code, statements, reports and information on the panel and its work.
• NASDAQ provides news, analysis and prices and portfolio tracking
• FIND (Financial Information Net Directory) has a large database of links to financial institutions of all types.
• Mondaq is a provider of free legal and professional articles online. The sections "UK Briefing", "International Briefing" and "Offshore Briefing" categorise information on the legislative and regulatory framework affecting business and investment in the UK and European Union, Eastern Europe, North America, South-East Asia & China, Africa and the Middle East and major offshore centres. Mondaq also provides these articles to Dow Jones, Reuters, Datastar, Lexis Nexis, WestLaw and FT Profile.
• Reckon LLP is a London-based consultancy firm specialising in regulation and competition economics. The site provides extensive information and comment which would be of interest to UK and EC competition law specialists.
• NERA Economic Consulting is an international firm of economists with more than 40 years of practical experience creating strategies, studies, reports, expert testimony and policy recommendations in topics relating to industrial and financial economics. The global team of 500 professionals operates in 18 offices across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. They provide The Global Antitrust Weekly, a free weekly news bulletin which summarises news from the press relating to current cases in antitrust and competition policy from around the world.
• Jordans offer a number of services in this general area including company formations, company compliance services & software, company information and other related services.
• PLC Competition is a service for competition law specialists and other commercial lawyers who use competition law in their practices. The aim of the service is to keep its users up-to-date with developments in key areas of competition law and to provide them with practical support. Subscribers receive practical updates explaining the implications of new developments as they occur. The service also provides access to a maintained know-how bank comprising practice notes, precedents and forms. The updates are integrated with the know-how bank and useful external resources. There is a free trial available of the service. You can sign up on the site.
• PLC Corporate is a service for corporate and commercial lawyers. The aim of the service is to keep its users up-to-date with developments in key areas and to provide them with practical support in the form of continuously maintained standard documents, drafting notes and practice notes. The service also comprises the entire archive of PLC Magazine. There is a free trial available of the service. You can sign up on the site.
• Richards Gray provides a wide and comprehensive range of property & corporate information services encompassing, amongst many others, Personal Local Authority, Environmental, Mining, Water, NLIS and Company Searches.
• Company Law Club offers a number of services for members (it is free but you have to register) including access to a database of company law (similar to a basic company law textbook online) and access to forms from Companies House. The site is supported by company registration agents Incorporation Services Ltd.
• International Centre for Commercial Law (the Legal 500 series), from Legalease, provides current commentary from legal experts.
• Lawdit, Solicitors, of Southampton, provide a very useful online newsletter on IP, trade marks and e-commerce topics, at Lawditnews. Each month, there is a detailed and comprehensive round up of news items on these topics, complete with links to further information as appropriate. You can also register for automatic notification when the new newsletter is ready.
• The International Law Office provides global analysis to lawyers worldwide via a subscription-only email service. It provides legal developments from 80 jurisdictions (produced in collaboration with over 500 of the world's leading experts), a comprehensive directory of firms and partners, a database of the world's major deals and the legal advisers involved, and a global news roundup.
• Internet Integrity, recently formed with support from National High Tech Crime Unit, is an industry initiative designed to close the gap between legislation and the fast pace technological developments. It is a move towards greater self-regulation through the process of industry knowledge sharing, and collaboration to reduce the effectiveness of Cybercrime perpetrators.
• Compliance Exchange is a set of resources for compliance officers and other professionals engaged in managing or regulating investment business, maintained by Jonathan Halsey.
• Complinet supplies information and software solutions to the international financial services industry. They specialise in compliance, regulation and human resources. There are a number of subscription services available including daily news, a Rulebooks and Regulatory Update Service and a Know Your Client Database.
• Three sites relating to Competition:
  • Competition Online provides Irish competition law and also international information and "the World's Biggest Competition, Anti-trust and Regulatory Sites List".
  • Monckton Chambers provides a particularly good set of links for Competition Law.
  • Lawrence Jones provides an article on the new UK Competition Law called "Teeth and Claws for Competition Regulators".
• Vortex Centrum Limited is the place where you can obtain the subscription newsletter World Money Laundering Report, edited by Nigel Morris-Cotterill and also obtain the free summary newsletter WMLR Digest. This covers issues relating to the prevention of money laundering, compliance with counter-money laundering laws and the regulatory environment.

Comments or queries? delia@venables.co.uk