Our lawyers have experience in advising a wide range of businesses and individuals, including producers and distributors, from small businesses to national manufacturers and retailers. We have experience of various industry-specific products such as furniture, electrical products, construction products and medical devices.
Following the discovery of a potential product safety issue, timely and commercial advice on how to respond to the incident is essential. The early response period is crucial in order to confirm the potential issue, determine the scope of the problem, and ascertain what action is required in order to ensure consumer safety and minimize damage to the business.
BCL assists businesses to work through the complex issues and ramifications in a crisis scenario, providing advice on issues such as the obligations of producers and others in the supply chain, notifying regulators, contacting consumers, responding to notices (such as suspension, withdrawal and recall notices), and recalling affected products.
In the event of a criminal investigation, such as a trading standards investigation, specialist advice is available throughout the process, including regarding investigative powers, witness interviews and PACE interviews under caution.
Our renowned criminal law experience across the entire firm means that if there is a prosecution, comprehensive advice is available regarding the court process, defences such as due diligence, evidential issues and associated matters such as confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
Expertise:
We provide specialist advice and representation to companies and individuals in areas such as:
- Crisis management.
- Legally privileged internal investigations.
- Trading Standards investigations, including the powers of Trading Standards Officers.
- Product safety, product labelling, misleading marketing and other unfair trading practices, pricing practices and age-restricted products.
- Unsafe products, including the obligations of producers and distributors, notifying regulators, contacting consumers, responding to notices (such as suspension, withdrawal and recall notices), and product recalls.
- Obtaining appropriate expert evidence.
- Requests to attend formal PACE interviews under caution.
- Defending prosecutions of companies and individuals for alleged breaches of consumer protection law, for example under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005, including the defence of due diligence, in the Magistrates’ Court and Crown Court.
