MCP Solicitors and The Business Support Group
MCP Solicitors' Business Support Group is here to provide you with all the advice and services you may need as a business. We have linked all of our business-related departments in order to give you the best possible service.
This means that we will have a full understanding of your business and the various issues facing you so we can offer a cost-effective, proactive service when you need it most.
Each Business Support Group client is allocated a Client Relationship Partner, that is, a Partner to look after all your legal needs and be your initial point of contact in any legal matter.
We aim to stay in touch with our commercial clients and make sure to advise and update them on any relevant legal issue including company regulation, employment law, health and safety and inheritance tax (a major concern to the entrepreneur).
From starting a business and purchasing the building, to creating employment contracts and health & safety procedures, to selling the company, we can help.
MCP Solicitor's Business Support Group understands the needs of business, the pressures, the excitement, the trials and the tribulations and the loneliness that you can feel. We have considerable experience in this area and most importantly we are a business ourselves.
SCOPE OF SUPPORT
MCP has considerable experience in working with a number of well known national retailers, particularly in the fields of health and safety, trading standards, food safety, liquor licensing, environmental issues, employment, road traffic matters, dispute resolution and commercial property. For many years we have been one of the few firms in the UK to specialise in the provision of a full range of legal services to retailers. The Legal 500 has quoted praise from a leading PLC for our understanding of the retail sector.
CLIENTS
We have worked with groups as diverse as WH Smith, Argos, Homebase, Wickes, Focus, Halfords, Somerfield, The Cooperative Group and The Garden Centre Group (formerly Wyevale).
COURT WORK
As an illustration, in the last nine months we have enjoyed a highly successful period, achieving a 100% success rate in seven major trials defending national retailers, involving liquor licensing, health and safety, toy safety, food safety and food hygiene. In doing so, we have been able to recover in excess of £150,000 in costs for our clients. Over the past 10 years, we have been able to recover over £750,000 in costs for our clients.
PREVENTATIVE ADVICE
Equally important as fighting and winning cases is preventing them in the first place. This requires an in-depth knowledge of regulatory law, combined with the experience of working directly with retail stores, which is where our main strengths lie. We are fully conversant with retail practices and procedures, meaning for example that we need to spend very little time initially learning how a new client operates its business.
INVESTIGATIONS
We have years of experience of dealing with enforcement officers and guiding clients through all the difficult stages of investigations. Increasingly, enforcement officers are looking at, not just corporate responsibility, but also individual liability on the part of directors and others in a controlling position. In 30 years of work in this field, it is our proud boast that no director or even a senior member of the operation has ever been criminally prosecuted personally. In addition, we have had considerable experience with dealing with the tricky area of enforcement notices.
CHARGES
We believe that our current charging rates are extremely competitive and cost effective. Discounted rates can be offered to clients providing regular or exclusive instructions. Please note that the rates are reviewed each year in April.
LOCATION
We are centrally located. Our existing clients have outlets spread throughout England and Wales and the fact that their head offices can be as far away from our home base as Bristol and Crewe, for example, does not present any practical problem.
