“Our Liability Act issues are well taken care of, they are handled automatically through a private service provider and are integrated into our own system.”
This is often the answer when asking companies how the Liability Act issues are handled in their company. This sounds good in general, but on closer inspection not so. Excessive automation can turn out to be costly if facing a negligence fee.
A report issued by a private service provider may give you an OK status, even if all the necessary information can not be found in the report. For example, a collective agreement might not be named but instead, a company states that it will comply with the provisions of the Employment Contracts Act and the Working Hours Act. However, according to the Liability Act, this is not enough and the principal terms of employment applicable to the work must be provided. It is also possible that a company has temporarily hired a workforce for a project, but is not registered with the employer register. In this case, there may not be employee-specific information available in the report, but the report status shows that everything is fine.
When checking the documents and clarifications, it is important to understand what is being checked and why. The documents and clarifications must always be obtained before the contract is concluded and documents must be less than three months old. If you are unsure whether a Liability check is required or not, it is advisable to do it. You can also always ask the supervising authority for advice.
You can check if a company is registered to different registers and their tax payment status free of charge in The Business Information System (ytj.fi). An extract from the Trade Register can be purchased from the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) or requested directly from your contracting partner. Other clarifications must be requested from the contracting partner.
The documents and clarifications must be kept for at least two years after the end of the work on the contract. The documents and clarifications can be stored electronically or as hard copies, but the most important thing is that they are immediately available for possible inspection. If it comes out later that documents and clarifications were not collected before the contract was concluded, it is advisable to do so as soon as the deficiency is noticed.
We are living in the golden age of automation, but not everything can or should be automated. It is important to understand that certain things require a review by a real person instead of a machine.
