Black Country law firm Manby & Steward is urging businesses to be careful when using standard terms and conditions for purchasing and selling goods and services.
Businesses should consider regularly updating their terms and conditions, James Knight, partner, has warned.
He said: "Many businesses may feel they are safe using standard terms and conditions year upon year. However, terms and conditions that have not been updated for many years which fail to account for any changes in the law may be ineffective and may leave a business open to civil or even criminal action."
Those businesses using standard terms and conditions, he added, must ensure that they actually form part of the relevant contract.
Terms and conditions printed on invoices, remittance advices, catalogues, price lists, order forms, order acknowledgements, delivery notes or published on websites will not necessarily form part of the contract. These terms must be brought to the attention of the other party.
Mr Knight also warned that it was not always safe to use one set of standard terms and conditions for all transactions or that all standard terms and conditions were the same and they could merely copy those used by a competitor.
Indeed a proposed reform of the law on unfair contract terms could cause all businesses to review their standard terms and conditions, according to Simon Thomas, associate in the Wilkes Partnership's commercial dispute resolution department.
He says proposals put forward by the Law Commission are designed to offer more protection for small firms.
The changes are also being made to consolidate two existing pieces of legislation.
"This Bill is primarily aimed at clarifying what is currently a rather complicated area of law," said Mr Thomas. "There are also extra measures being introduced to offer improved protection for small businesses.
"However, it will potentially affect all businesses - whether large or small - as they will need to review their standard contract terms and conditions. Companies will have to make sure they are not in danger of falling foul of the new rules.
"The proposals include special protection for 'micro businesses' - those with nine or fewer employees - who may be able to challenge any standard term not altered through negotiation."
The draft Unfair Terms in Contracts Bill has been published along with detailed recommendations by the Law Commission - which reviews the country's laws and recommends reforms when required - following a request made by the Department for Trade and Industry in 2001.
The new Bill combines the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
