A new mother who was not invited to her work Christmas party whilst on maternity leave has succeeded in her claim against her employer....
Monica Atwal takes an in-depth look at the Next Equal Pay case and the news that documents relating to the case had been destroyed in a thought leadership article published in Governance and Compliance Magazine....
Now that the UK is past its first week of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, employers are starting to consider what 2021 will look like and whether there is hope of the workplace returning to some form of normality. The question on many employers’ minds is - can we require our staff to get vaccinated?...
The Government’s CEST tool, designed to help determine whether a worker will be caught by the changes to the off payroll working rules (IR35) was unable to reach a conclusion in 19% of cases checked in the last year. ...
This month, the BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) opened their consultation on reforming employment contract non-compete clauses. Back in 2016, there was a close to universal consensus amongst employers that restrictive covenants are a valuable instrument for those seeking to protect their business interests. At the same time, their perceived impact on an ex-employee’s ability to find new work was deemed insignificant, or not unfair. ...
The Government has now published detailed guidance on applying for a Frontier Worker permit following the end of the Brexit transition period. The scheme is open to Frontier Workers who have worked in the UK prior to 31 December 2020....
The April 2021 statutory maternity, paternity and sick pay rates have been released by the Government. The increases are modest at less than £1 per week. ...
The Employment Tribunal has issued a timely reminder to employers of the dangers of social media in the workplace, after finding in Abdi v Deltec International Courier Ltd that the employee had been harassed by her colleagues via WhatsApp. ...
The NEC has published a second set of amendments to its NEC4 suite of contracts, reflecting user feedback from the industry and recent legal development. The October 2020 amendments can be found on the NEC site. ...
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published its annual review of corporate governance reporting against its UK Corporate Governance Code (the Code). The Code, published in its current form in 2018, provides businesses with key corporate governance recommendations. ...
Last month the Government introduced the National Security and Investment Bill to the House of Commons for its first reading. The purpose of the Bill is to give the government further powers to scrutinise and, where necessary, intervene in certain business transactions if it believes national security concerns are present; this will include mergers and acquisitions. ...
The standard EC period is now 6 weeks rather than a month (but there is no longer the possibility of extending it by 2 weeks). Although this may appear to give people... ...
Festivities will be very different this year. Despite exiting a national Lockdown this week, 98.7% of the population in England find themselves in tiers 2 or 3 in the run up to Christmas. ...
The end of November has seen a cumulation of domestic violence focused stats and reminders. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on the 25th November saw the release of UK’s first comprehensive 10-year femicide census, which revealed harrowing figures, including that 62% of the deceased women were killed by their current partner or an ex, mostly in their own homes....
The Sponsorship Management System (SMS) is a key part of a Sponsor Licence. The system is undergoing an essential upgrade in preparation for the new immigration system that is to commence from 1 December 2020....
It is very common for a commercial lease to stipulate that the landlord’s certificate stating the total cost of services provided under the lease, and the service charge payable by the tenant towards those services, is conclusive and binding on the tenant in the absence of manifest error or fraud....
Employers can be liable for inducing a breach of a restrictive covenant, but relying on legal advice can provide a defence as held the Court of Appeal in Allen v Dodd & Co Ltd....
‘Push Payment Fraud’ – where a fraudster deceives someone into paying money to an account controlled by that fraudster – is increasingly common. The true cost of this type of scam is unknown, but it is believed to run into hundreds of millions of pounds a year. In most cases it leaves the victim with large losses and very limited recourse unless it is lucky enough to have insurance cover in place....
The Fawcett Society have marked Equal Pay Day – the day of the year on which women stop earning relative to men – by releasing a report warning the UK is at a crossroads on equal pay....
Last month our article discussed the employment law implications to consider if your employees are working from abroad during the pandemic....