Email and website company information requirements change on 1 January
Howard Lake | 21 December 2006 | News
From 1 January 2007 UK companies will be required to include certain regulatory information on their websites and email footers to adhere to the Companies Act and avoid having to pay a fine.
The current duty with regard to required information on business letters is being extended to include websites, emails and order forms. From 1 January 2007 companies must list their company registration number, place of registration, and registered office address on their website as well as in emails and on order forms.
The information must be in legible characters, so can not be hidden in tiny or coloured text.
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Fortunately, the information does not have to appear on every page on a website, although some organisation might choose to do this.
Some charities’ limited companies will no doubt already be following this approach as many have assumed that ‘business letters’ applied to emails. But from 1 January, following an update to the Companies Act 1985, the requirement will be explicit.
The Register has published some practical advice on what to do to comply with the new requirement.
The new law doesn’t address charities, but while checking that an organisation’s website and email address meet these new requirements, it makes sense to ensure that the charity’s registered number appears on all emails and on any page that includes any fundraising message. In practice it makes sense to declare the registered charity number on every page on a charity’s website.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.