Will I have to go to court?

The golden thread requirements will be retrospective, so will apply to existing buildings as well as new build. This is part of the reason for the Building Safety Regulator’s ‘get to know your building’ guidance referred to in the talk, with the link in the Powerpoint presentation. While the details of the golden thread requirement are still to be confirmed, now is a good time to start to gather as much information as can be obtained about existing buildings as possible in preparation. The Government guidance anticipates that the Principal Accountable Person will be responsible for developing and coordinating the golden thread for existing buildings.

Employees on any type of employment contract including full-time, part-time, agency, flexible or zero hours and foreign nationals who are eligible to work in the UK on any visa can be furloughed subject to the following excluded categories:

• Anyone who was not employed prior to 30 October 2020
• Anyone for whom you haven’t made a PAYE Real Time Information submission to HMRC between 20 March 2020 and 30 October 2020.
• Employees who are working but on reduced hours or for reduced pay
• Employees currently receiving SSP (see FAQ on SSP and self-isolation below)
• Public sector employees
• Employees of businesses or organisations in receipt of public funding for staff costs (except for those who are not primarily funded by the government and whose staff cannot be redeployed to assist with the Covid-19 response)

In recognition of the problems that the current situation is causing, the UK IPO classed the 24th March and all subsequent days as “interrupted days” which means that deadlines that fall within this period will be extended until the UK IPO declares that the interrupted days have ceased. As lockdown has begun to be eased, the IPO has now reviewed its position and has confirmed that the “interrupted days” period will come to an end on the 29 July 2020. This means that Thursday 30 July 2020 will be the first normal day of operation, therefore all “interrupted days” deadlines will expire on this day. Similarly, if your deadline falls after the period of interruption ends, this deadline will not be automatically extended.

The IPO is conscious that many businesses may still be in challenging positions when the period of “interrupted days” end. They will endeavour to continue to provide flexibility and support to assist businesses with their applications. They hope to temporarily remove fees for requests for extensions of deadlines, and will give further updates when this fee exemption is in place.

The IPO continues to encourage applicants to meet original deadlines where they are able.  As their offices are closed, the UK IPO is not currently processing paper forms (i.e. hard copy) and faxes. However, they are processing forms which have been submitted electronically, or via email and have made a new email address available for the submission of forms.

Intellectual Property Offices covering other territories have made their own announcements about the extension of deadlines. The EUIPO’s period of extension of deadlines came to an end on the 18th May. However, they have published a Guidance Note and accompanying webinar on the EUIPO website, detailing options for parties who may struggle to meet deadlines and remedies for those who may have missed deadlines.

The European Commission has reintroduced its “comfort letter” system for cooperation in relation to shortage of supply. This allows cooperating businesses to check what the Commission’s view of their proposals are before implementing them.

In the UK context the SMA has introduced an exemption for suppliers of healthcare services to the NHS. This allows:

• Sharing information about capacity
• Coordination of staff deployment
• Joint purchasing of goods, services and facilities
• Sharing or lending of facilities
• Division of activities, including agreeing whether to expand or reduce the volume or type of services provided by suppliers

In relation to whether the CMA will investigate cooperation, it has indicated:

• The CMA will use its discretion as to the prioritisation of its enforcement action to permit some agreements/collaboration which would otherwise potentially give rise to enforcement action (including potentially attracting fines of up to 10% of group worldwide turnover)
• The CMA will use its existing power to exempt certain agreements under the Competition Act 1998 where these are in the public interest

• Working with PFI providers to get contingency plans up to date

• If a PFI provider is struggling to achieve service delivery requirements due to Covid-19, then local arrangements should be put in place to:
  • maintain unitary charge payments
  • revise contract requirements/standards

moderating payment and performance regimes where appropriate.

• In any event, you may wish to review and adjust your requirements to reflect the current situation. It is possible that some requirements can be relaxed, whereas others need to be tightened. For example, there may be an increased need for cleaning and maintenance in certain areas of your PFI premises or the layout of the premises and/or room uses may have temporarily changed. With staff illness and shortage likely to be an issue, you may also wish to consider if the resource can be moved from one area to another to help maintain essential services.
• When putting local bespoke arrangements into place it is vital that:
  •  Contract requirements or performance standards are not relaxed to the point where health and safety are put at risk.
  • It is made clear that the arrangements are temporary and that matters will return to normal as soon as the Covid-19 emergency is over. Indeed the guidance note makes clear that if assets temporarily close they should be kept in such condition that they can be immediately up and running when this emergency is over. In such instances, likely a basic level of maintenance and security will therefore be required as a minimum.