Four types of letters

There are 3 important letters that your business cannot ignore if it receives one. Each one is serious and has enormous consequences for the business.  Each one is avoidable and only one is welcome.

There is a fourth letter that you won’t receive, but also has huge consequences.

The 3 letters that your business can receive are letters from:

• a Regulator, for example the ACCC, a State Fair Trading Office, the TGA or Workcover alleging that you or your company has breached the law that the relevant regulator enforces;
•  the lawyer acting for the owner of a trade mark, copyright, patent or other intellectual property rights,  alleging that you have infringed their client’s rights and demanding that you stop doing so and make amends;
• a letter from your customers, complaining about your goods or the services that they have received from you or your company.

The 4^th letter is from a competitor. Unfortunately for you, they won’t be writing to you, but to the Regulator.

What do you do if you receive one of these three letters?

Regulators and lawyers

Usually the letters from the Regulator or the lawyer’s letter arrive out of the blue and the allegations are confusing and concerning.

Confusing, because you had no idea that your business was doing anything wrong.

Concerning, because the demands may mean:

• a huge disruption to your business responding to the Regulator’s investigations
• a recall of products
• fines and penalties, even Court proceedings
• a change in how you do business
• rebranding, relabelling, repackaging product
• damage to staff morale
• damage to your reputation and the goodwill of the business

The first thing to do is to get professional advice. This will usually be from a lawyer that understands and specialises in the area of law and can advise you and respond appropriately to the requests and demands made.

The next thing is to examine your business operations and  processes and look at where the business’s operations are open to risk,  develop and implement compliance processes to avoid or minimise the risk. Engaging an external compliance expert who understands the relevant law and can interpret it for your business circumstances will take much of the burden from you, your staff and the business.

 Customer complaints

A letter of complaint, although not good should be welcomed as a warning that things may not be as good as you think they are. Complaints need to be acted on promptly to investigate and respond to the particular issue and to review processes or operations to avoid more widespread problems and issues that can damage the businesses’ reputation and breach a law.

At Ascentia we can help you if you receive “a letter” and help you to identify, assess an minimise compliance risks.