The “START Column” started as an initiative in Africa’s Leading Business and Financial Times Media – The Business and Financial Times (B&FT) Newspaper to offer readers an ordinary, simple and practical explanation of complex and relevant business law issues in the most business-friendly language and manner.

It follows a clear understanding and appreciation by the Writer of the importance of law on businesses offering an avenue for an effective, efficient and sustainable business planning, implementation and reviews.

The writer’s goal among others is to provide clear guidelines for Start-up optimisation, avoidance of transactional pitfalls, enhancement of regulatory compliance and building of operational capacity.

At the heart of the START Column initiative is communication to business owners, directors, managers and entrepreneurial enthusiasts in plain language highlighting precisely the effects of laws and regulations without the use of legalese.  

The START Column covers:

• The assessment of issues pertaining to Start-up and the Entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ghana
• The establishment of signposts for Transactional pitfalls for businesses
• The discussions of Advisory guides for business decision-making
• The demonstration of the usefulness of Regulatory Compliance for small and medium-sized businesses
• The promotion of Training & Capacity Building needs of businesses.

1. Start-up and Entrepreneurial legal toolkit

Provides write-ups that focus on how to move ideas into business concepts, management and continuous business outlook from a comparative standpoint. It highlights the opportunities and risks within the Start-up ecosystem and offer emerging trends and how Ghana’s legal regime provides for the same.

1. Transactions

Businesses/Companies engage in all kinds of transactions daily with varied legal implications. The write-ups will provide toolkits for the conduct of simple due diligence, negotiations and consideration of various contracts/commercial agreements. This will assist business managers and owners to avoid many legal pitfalls resulting from transactions

1. Advisory

The write-ups will offer legal advice touching on issues of company management, corporate government, labour and human resource management, property acquisition of companies, investments among others. The goal is to provide standard legal checklists to support businesses.

1. Regulatory Compliance

We have a complex business regulatory regime in Ghana. The complexities have resulted in many cases of non-compliance. The goal is to highlight the essential business regulatory issues, provide a simplified checklist for the various industry regulatory issues and offer compliance strategies. This will cover issues of business registration, tax compliance, labour, permits and licenses, patents and trademarks etc.

1. Training & Capacity Building

The Column highlights skill and capacity gaps and provide strategies for business managers, employers and owners to build capacities. Write-ups shall seek to propose ways businesses can build internal capacities within the permissions of law.