Vicarious liability (Commercial) definition

View the related practice notes about Vicarious liability (Commercial)

Liability for independent contractors

This Practice Note discusses when a party engaging an independent contractor may be subject to non-delegable duties or become vicariously liable in tort for the acts or omissions of their independent contractors.Remaining liable for acts and omissions of contractorsCommercial entities often delegate obligations or services that they owe to third parties to contractors. Although this may be possible to an extent, an engaging party may remain liable for the acts and omissions of such contractors. This may arise in the context of contractual liability, agency, vicarious liability and non-delegable duties. It is therefore important when engaging independent contractors to understand the scope of any continuing liability to be able to advise on risk, limitation and exclusion of liability and insurance. This Practice Note focuses on vicarious liability and non-delegable duties when engaging independent contractors.The position in contractContractual rights and benefits are (subject to express contractual provisions to the contrary) assignable, and contractual obligations or burdens are not. In certain circumstances contractual obligations or burdens may be performed by contractors or...

Fraudulent trading under the Fraud Act 2006

Fraudulent trading under the Fraud Act 2006A defendant who is a sole trader, in a partnership or a trust, commits the offence of fraudulent trading if they are knowingly party to the carrying on of a company’s business either with intent to defraud creditors or for any other fraudulent purposes.Where the offence is committed by a company it would be charged under section 993 of the Companies Act 2006 (CA 2006).Section 9 of the Fraud Act 2006 (FrA 2006) extends the type of fraudulent business to circumstances in which the business is not carried on by a company or a corporate body. This parallels the offence that applies in the case of fraudulent businesses carried on by companies and other corporate bodies but extends criminal liability to non-corporate traders, including sole traders, partnerships and trusts and other non-corporate traders.The offence of fraudulent trading has evolved through case law and it is established that the offence has these features:•dishonesty is an essential ingredient of the offence•the mischief is the conduct of...