Health & safety, regulatory and safeguarding for retail businesses

Our regulatory team are genuine experts in their field with significant experience in retail gained over many years – so we can deliver commercial, pragmatic solutions to the problems faced by those in the sector. 

We advise on all aspects of health and safety, environmental, retail/ trading law and product safety law – everything from accidents involving staff, contractors and customers to pricing and alleged misleading information to underage sales, product safety problems or a full-scale product recall. 

We regularly advise manufacturers, suppliers and distributors on the law and regulatory framework and their obligations under product-specific legislation. The team regularly works with Board members to help them deal with crisis management issues which can arise when a serious health and safety incident or product liability arises. 

We understand the issues facing our clients and we ensure our service delivery proactively supports their success at all levels. Regulatory issues are often high profile or business critical and our experienced team is on hand when needed, inside and outside office hours, to help our clients through the crisis events that may affect them – whether it is a fatal accident, pollution incident, data protection issue or Local Planning Authority enforcement. 

We deal with a diverse range of regulators: the HSE; the Environment Agency; the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office; Trading Standards; Police, Competition & Markets Authority and local authorities to name a handful.

Experience 

• “Big 4” supermarket – Advising on the investigation and prosecution of slip incidents for a “big 4” supermarket which had far reaching implications for the management of slip risk across an estate of 430 stores and affecting 130,000 employees; successfully prevented any major change to policy and achieving minimal enforcement impact. 
• Major retailers – Advising a number of major retailers in connection with a variety of health & safety investigations including noise abatement, work at height, lifting and warehousing operations, food preparation and process system issues, incidents involving contractors and transport /access issues. 
• Well-known retailer – Acting for a well-known retailer in trading standards investigations in Northern Ireland successfully defending allegations of breaching the consumer protection legislation around advertising sale items. 
• Product safety and recall issues – Advising in connection with product safety and recall issues in connection with a number of different household products including mattresses, toasters, scent diffusers, deckchairs, stepladders, pillows, various food products, set top boxes, electric light fittings. 
• Major food manufacturer – Acting on behalf of a major food manufacturer following allegations of pollution arising from one of its manufacturing plants and negotiating a settlement with the Environment Agency.
• National retailer – Developing a safeguarding policy and supporting suite of documents and training guides for a national retailer who employed child models for advertising campaigns.