Last week saw the launch of a new guide aimed at assisting and supporting those who battle mental health issues in the workplace. The guide has been compiled by the CIPD, the UK’s leading professional body for HR and people development, and Mind, the longstanding mental health charity. CIPD’s recent ‘Health and Well-Being at Work’ report, produced in partnership with Simplyhealth, showed increases in work-related stress and mental health...
The Government recently published a report into off-site manufacturing for construction, exploring how construction industry productivity can be improved through the use of off-site manufacturing. The report is available here. ...
The doctrine of frustration in English Law provides very limited remedy and therefore, it is well established that parties should include a provision in a commercial agreement which governs issues of liability where a contract cannot be performed by virtue of unforeseen circumstances....
On 26 September 2018 and 4 October 2018, we hosted a seminar ‘JCT and NEC: Standard Forms Compared’ which covered the following topics:...
Following a campaign by the Liberal Democrats, suggesting that employers with over 250 employees be obliged to share their parental leave policies, ten major employers (including Deloitte and RBS) have agreed to publish their parental leave and pay policies. The research cited to support this campaign included a survey by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, which concluded that as many as 54,000 women a year lose their jobs due to either pregnancy or maternity discrimination....
As the UK hospitality industry suffers disruption by disgruntled workers it is a timely reminder that there is a large UK population of workers who are feeling exploited by the gig economy and lack of employment rights....
The Financial Times has reported a survey that shows people are working harder and faster, leaving them exhausted every day. This comes from the 2017 Skills and Employment Survey....
The Ministry of Justice has published tribunal statistics for April – June 2018. Readers will be aware that tribunal caseloads have increased steadily since the abolition of tribunal fees in July 2017. That trend continues in the latest report. ...
As recently reported in the media, the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) has issued its first Enforcement Notice under the Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA 2018”) against AggregateIQ Data Services Ltd (“AIQ”), a Canadian data analytics company. AIQ was associated with targeted advertising for the ‘Vote Leave’ campaign during the Brexit referendum. ...
In a judgment published this week in the case of Mutombo-Mpania v Angard Staffing Solutions, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) upheld a decision that - an employee who suffered from essential hypertension but had advised his employer that he had no disability was not, on the evidence he provided, a disabled person; and the employer could not reasonably have been expected to know that he was disabled. ...
It appears that Morrisons is the latest of the ‘Big Four’ supermarkets (so called due to their dominance of the market share) to face a string of Equal Pay claims. Whilst Tesco still holds the lion’s share, controlling 27.4% of the available market, Morrisons’ not so insignificant 10.2% keeps it firmly rooted as one of the most influential chains in the UK. The claimants’ representatives are well versed in this matter as they are already overseeing legal action on behalf of 30,000 employees at ASDA, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. ...
In a recent EAT case, the claimant had decided to move from one department to another, both within the employer’s business. She had received a conditional job offer from the new department and wrote to her employer stating ‘please accept one month’s notice from the above date’. Her conditional offer was later withdrawn and she asked to retract, what she called, her notice of resignation. The employer refused stating that she had resigned....
Almost every job application in the modern world will ask for a reference to accompany an application. It is an important tool to establish whether a candidate is suitable for the role they are applying for. ...
Thank you to all those that came to support our Charity Food Truck Rally in Covent Garden on Thursday 6th September. We were so lucky that the sun shone for much of the day!...
Last year, we wrote about Nestlé’s decade-plus efforts to achieve EU trade mark registration for the three-dimensional shape of its Kit Kat chocolate bar (certainly very distinctive here in the UK!), and setbacks in 2016 both with an adverse ruling from the EU General Court and with the UK High Court ruling against UK trade mark protection for the shape. We also noted that Nestlé’s nemesis in all of this has been Mondelēz International, a group whose brands include Cadbury....
British universities have called on the government to bring back the post study work visa which would allow overseas students to stay in the country to work for up to two years after graduation. The scheme was scrapped in 2012 and strict post study work rules may have had a significant impact on prospective applicants from certain countries, including India....
In North East London NHS Foundation Trust v Zhou, the EAT has decided that it may not necessarily be unreasonable conduct for solicitors to have filed an incomplete claim form....
In a recent High Court decision, the Court reaffirmed some important considerations when dealing with alleged breaches of contract by an employer. ...
A drone is an unmanned flying aircraft used to collect data. Drones are closely associated with innovation in digital technology and are already used by a wide range of industries and the public sector. As we identified in our article in June 2018, Drones have begun to change the way the construction industry operates. They are used to survey sites, both at the start of planning to produce baseline models and during construction to track progress. They can also be used to monitor security and health and safety. ...
Clarkslegal are delighted to announce that Antony Morris, David Rintoul and Michael Sippitt have been inducted to The Legal 500 Hall of Fame, as elite leading lawyers. ...