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Yes. A CIC is just a limited company with some additional community interest obligations. You can set up a limited company to shield yourself from liability (i.

Yes. A CIC is just a limited company with some additional community interest obligations. You can set up a limited company to shield yourself from liability (i.e: if your website is sued by a user, your personal assets aren't at risk) and only in exceptional cases (where serious lawbreaking is involved) could you be held personally liable. Rightly or wrongly, limited companies in the UK provide a high degree of protection for wrongdoing. Defrauding HMRC out of hundreds of thousands of pounds and suffering no consequence is happening day in day out. An Ofcom fine is nothing by comparison.

morkalork 2y ago
How would that work if someone set up a CIC, used it to rent a VPS and did some grey-hat hacking activities?
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  If the person committed a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act then they would face criminal sanctions, personally. The Online safety bill gives Ofcom the power to levy regulatory fines, not criminal sanctions, so is very different
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
akoboldfrying 2y ago
1. Thanks for this very helpful information about how some seemingly quite simple legal manoeuvring can be used to dodge 99% of this law. 2. Doesn't the fact that simple legal manoeuvring can be used to dodge 99% of this law make the law (and laws like it) farcical on its face? Merely an elaborate set of extra hoops that only serves to punish the naive, while increasing everyone's compliance costs?
- aimazon 2y ago
  The law is designed to target large companies that aren't seen as doing enough to prevent harm on the internet. Setting up a CIC doesn't dodge the law, the legal entity (the CIC) remains accountable for conduct on the website. Setting up a CIC removes the risk from the individual website operator because they're no longer operating the website, instead the website is operated by a separate legal entity. The website could still be held accountable for violating the law but the consequence would be the CIC is fined, not the individual behind it. The same principle as any limited liability company.
  - akoboldfrying 2y ago
    >the consequence would be the CIC is fined Does this in practice mean that the original human person would have to pay that fine? What would the consequences likely be for the original human person? If those consequences remain severe, then it's not a simple legal manoeuvre after all. This reduces farcicality, but also means there's no way for an individual to safely run this kind of website. If those consequences round to zero, my next question would be: Can a large company spin up a CIC just to shield itself in the same way? (If so, it seems the farce would be complete.)
    - jimnotgym 2y ago
      In practice the person would not have to pay the fine. The company would. If the company had no cash to pay it then it could be forced into insolvency. No a large company can't spin up a CIC to run a business website (because it is not community interest), but it doesn't need to, it is already a limited liability company. However this is not a farce, the limited liability applies to the shareholders, not the company. The company gets fined, and has to pay the fine or risk having its assets siezed.... then the shareholders have lost their company. The liability of the shareholders is limited to the shareholders invested amount, ie the shareholders can't lose any more than they put in. So if the fine was more than the company can afford, the shareholders lose their company, but don't have to pay the rest. It is not a farce, because losing a profit earning company is bad for a shareholder
      - 2y ago

morkalork 2y ago

How would that work if someone set up a CIC, used it to rent a VPS and did some grey-hat hacking activities?

jimnotgym 2y ago
If the person committed a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act then they would face criminal sanctions, personally. The Online safety bill gives Ofcom the power to levy regulatory fines, not criminal sanctions, so is very different

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

akoboldfrying 2y ago

1. Thanks for this very helpful information about how some seemingly quite simple legal manoeuvring can be used to dodge 99% of this law. 2. Doesn't the fact that simple legal manoeuvring can be used to dodge 99% of this law make the law (and laws like it) farcical on its face? Merely an elaborate set of extra hoops that only serves to punish the naive, while increasing everyone's compliance costs?

aimazon 2y ago
The law is designed to target large companies that aren't seen as doing enough to prevent harm on the internet. Setting up a CIC doesn't dodge the law, the legal entity (the CIC) remains accountable for conduct on the website. Setting up a CIC removes the risk from the individual website operator because they're no longer operating the website, instead the website is operated by a separate legal entity. The website could still be held accountable for violating the law but the consequence would be the CIC is fined, not the individual behind it. The same principle as any limited liability company.
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  >the consequence would be the CIC is fined Does this in practice mean that the original human person would have to pay that fine? What would the consequences likely be for the original human person? If those consequences remain severe, then it's not a simple legal manoeuvre after all. This reduces farcicality, but also means there's no way for an individual to safely run this kind of website. If those consequences round to zero, my next question would be: Can a large company spin up a CIC just to shield itself in the same way? (If so, it seems the farce would be complete.)
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    In practice the person would not have to pay the fine. The company would. If the company had no cash to pay it then it could be forced into insolvency. No a large company can't spin up a CIC to run a business website (because it is not community interest), but it doesn't need to, it is already a limited liability company. However this is not a farce, the limited liability applies to the shareholders, not the company. The company gets fined, and has to pay the fine or risk having its assets siezed.... then the shareholders have lost their company. The liability of the shareholders is limited to the shareholders invested amount, ie the shareholders can't lose any more than they put in. So if the fine was more than the company can afford, the shareholders lose their company, but don't have to pay the rest. It is not a farce, because losing a profit earning company is bad for a shareholder
    - 2y ago