Am I bound by &quot;this letter is confidential&quot; boilerplate? In a lawsuit in the UK small claims court I've been sent an offer by the defendant's solicitor. I want to communicate this information to others who have the same claim. However at the bottom of the letter is a standard boilerplate text, obviously appended to every letter they send, saying that "This letter contains confidential information". They don't say anything else about confidentiality. I never agreed to keep anything confidential, and in their letter they say they will tell the judge about this offer if I still insist on going to court. Am I bound to keep their offer confidential? Edit Perhaps I should have said that this was an offer made "Without prejudice, save as to costs". It sounds like that has a bearing on the confidentiality, which I did not appreciate before. Also, I am accepting their offer, so this won't get to Court.
"Without prejudice" does not, of itself, create an obligation of confidentiality What it does do is prevent the contents being used against the author in any future proceedings - by this litigant or anyone else. The purpose of civil litigation is to resolve disputes. There is another, better, cheaper and more commonly used mechanism - parties agreeing on their own resolution through negotiation. The purpose of the without prejudice rule is to allow parties to have a full and frank negotiation without the risk that what they say will bite them on the ass in court. If they do not settle, then the court cannot and will not know about any concessions or negotiating positions that either party made or took. Adding "save as to costs" means that after the case is resolved, a party may introduce any offers they made that were better than what was won in order to show that costs should be mitigated - basically that because there was a better offer on the table the litigation was needless and the costs unnecessary. You can share it with whoever you like - they won't be able to use it in court.
A NDA can only cover confidential information, that is information that is not in the public sphere, and that was transmitted to the recipient in confidence, that is it is specifically identifiable information that the recipient knew or should have known from the circumstances of the communication was confidential. For example, "marketing techniques" are not confidential information although the specific marketing strategy (pricing, promotion etc.) to be employed for a particular group may be confidential if the circumstances of the communication are such that the recipient should have known they were. Telling them "Hey, this marketing strategy is confidential" is best, however, the nature of the communication may make it implicit, for example, if it is only communicated to a subset of employees and contains information that would obviously damage the organisation if made public such as a price or client list. An NDA that states "all information given is confidential" is probably not enforceable even if exceptions are given because a) it is manifestly untrue (how can the location of the bathrooms or which day is pay day be confidential?) and b) it places an unreasonable burden on the recipient to determine what is and what is not real confidential information.
The other answers don't quite spell it out, so I will. There is no law in the UK requiring landlords or their agents to show a property to all parties interested - refusal to show a property may however in some cases fall under discrimination laws, so that might be something you can pursue if you feel the refusal is due to your gender, race or sexual orientation. While they may have to justify their data collection under the GDPR, that is entirely separate to their refusal to show the property to you.
The fixed penalty notice is a notice under s172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (7) A requirement under subsection (2) may be made by written notice served in accordance with Criminal Procedure Rules, if the alleged offence took place in England and Wales, or by post otherwise; Let's assume england-and-wales. For service by post the relevant rule is 4.11. (2) Unless something different is shown, a document served on a person by any other method is served— (b) in the case of a document sent by first class post or by the equivalent of first class post, on the second business day after the day on which it was posted or despatched; The date it was posted or dispatched will be indicated by the postmark on the envelope, &quot;‘business day’ means any day except Saturday, Sunday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday or a bank holiday&quot; (2.2), and second means not the next one but the one after that. For scotland or northern-ireland you would need to determine their laws for service by post. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Your cousin was provided with all the information needed to determine the date of service because they are legally required to know the law. I can't believe neither of you had this right at your fingertips 😂. Note the &quot;unless something different is shown&quot;. If your cousin was in the Antarctic for the summer and didn't collect their mail until they returned, that would be &quot;something different&quot; and service would be when they collected the mail.
Discovery Basically, you ask. If your opponent thinks your request is out of bounds they object, give their reasons to the judge, you give yours and the judge orders them to produce the evidence or not. A lot of people think court cases have big “ah-ha” movements when a witness reveals something unknown on the stand. This rarely happens because there are no secrets in litigation - both sides have to clearly explain their case before, usually well before, they go to trial.
In general, court hearings are held in public; and anyone is free to make a fair and balanced report of the proceedings. It is important that justice is seen to be done. However, in some circumstances that is not true—the obvious example is if a child is involved. It is not sufficient though merely that "[the claimant] wants to keep his/her identity confidential". Have a look at the Civil Procedure Rules (part 39): 39.2 General rule – hearing to be in public The general rule is that a hearing [including a trial] is to be in public. ... A hearing, or any part of it, may be in private if – (a) publicity would defeat the object of the hearing; (b) it involves matters relating to national security; (c) it involves confidential information (including information relating to personal financial matters) and publicity would damage that confidentiality; (d) a private hearing is necessary to protect the interests of any child or protected party; (e) it is a hearing of an application made without notice and it would be unjust to any respondent for there to be a public hearing; (f) it involves uncontentious matters arising in the administration of trusts or in the administration of a deceased person’s estate; or (g) the court considers this to be necessary, in the interests of justice. The court may order that the identity of any party or witness must not be disclosed if it considers non-disclosure necessary in order to protect the interests of that party or witness. https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part39#39.2 If you can satisfy the court that one of (a) to (g) apply, the court may make an order anonymizing proceedings (for instance, you would only be referred to as "AB" in reports and judgements) or it might hold the hearing in camera (in private). However the other party may well wish to oppose your application. Indeed, even a newspaper hearing of your case but unable to report it is entitled to object: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2010/1.html (In re Guardian News) Conclusion In these circumstances, when carrying out the ultimate test of balancing all the factors relating to both M's article 8 rights and the article 10 rights of the press, we have come to the conclusion that there is indeed a powerful general, public interest in identifying M in any report of these important proceedings which justifies curtailment, to that extent, of his, and his family's, article 8 Convention rights to respect for their private and family life. For all these reasons, we would set aside the anonymity order in respect of M. ... Therefore, A, K, M and HAY will be named here and in the judgments on the substantive appeals, as Mr Mohammed Jabar Ahmed, Mr Mohammed Azmir Khan, Mr Michael Marteen (formerly known as Mohammed Tunveer Ahmed) and Mr Hani El Sayed Sabaei Youssef (or Hani al-Seba'i), respectively.
Not for normal correspondence There are laws that require a specified channel of communication for specific purposes such as a physical address for the service of legal notices, but there is no general requirement. How, or if, a company communicates with its customers about complaints will either be specified in the contract or up to the company to determine and advertise. For example, this site specifies “ will be deemed to have been duly given when received, if personally delivered or sent by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested; when receipt is electronically confirmed, if transmitted by facsimile or e-mail; or the day after it is sent, if sent for next day delivery by recognized overnight delivery service” - any other method of delivery (Whatsapp, Facebook, even their own chatrooms etc.) is not a valid method of service, if you use those methods, then legally, you have not communicated. So, if the company requires complaints to deal with by online chat, they can safely ignore any letter or email you might send them.
The question of whether a person was acting on their own behalf or that of a company would generally be a question of fact, so if such a case came to court it would be for both sides to present evidence and argue for their interpretation of it. In most cases the context makes it clear. You mention having a company email domain and associated email signature; that is certainly good practice and would go a long way towards creating a presumption that you were acting for a company. Also signing yourself with your job title or role (e.g. "Joe Bloggs, Chief Bottlewasher") makes it clear that you are speaking in your role as an employee. The content of the communication also matters; if you use your company email address to order goods from a supplier that the company has used before then the recipient can reasonably assume that you are ordering on behalf of the company and a court is likely to agree. OTOH if you use the company address to send libellous emails then the recipient would have a much higher bar to claim that this was the company view rather than a personal one.