Insights & News
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Extending ‘off-payroll’ worker reforms to the private sector
23 November 2017The Chancellor announced in the autumn Budget that there will be a consultation in 2018 to tackle non-compliance with IR35 rules in the private sector.
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Full Employment Tribunal fees refunds scheme now open
16 November 2017After a brief pilot scheme, the full scheme for refunding Employment Tribunal (“ET”) fees is now open for use by both claimants and respondents.
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Deliveroo defends union recognition application by demonstrating its riders are genuinely self-employed
15 November 2017The Central Arbitration Committee (“CAC”) has rejected an application from the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (“IWGB”) for collective bargaining rights in respect of Deliveroo riders, in a case in which Lewis Silkin acted for Deliveroo.
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New ACAS guidance on mental health in the workplace
25 October 2017Mental illness costs employers in the UK a lot of money – up to £30 billion each year in lost production, absence and recruitment costs according to Acas, which has recently published a guide to “promoting positive mental health in the workplace”.
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Employment Tribunal fees - refunds begin
24 October 2017After an unexpectedly lengthy wait, the Government has launched the first stage of its scheme for refunding Employment Tribunal (“ET”) fees following the Supreme Court’s decision that the fees system was unlawful.
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Progress on the Parental Bereavement Bill
23 October 2017The purpose of the proposed Parental Bereavement (Pay and Leave) Bill (“the Bill”) is to provide a statutory right to paid leave for employed parents who suffer the loss of a child. Previous attempts to introduce paid leave in these circumstances over the past few years have been unsuccessful. However, this Bill - introduced into Parliament in July - has the support of the Government and is likely to become law.
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International data transfers - are model clauses now under threat?
05 October 2017Many of you will remember Max Schrems, the Austrian law student who in 2015 successfully brought a case to the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) that resulted in the “safe harbor” - the agreement that allowed the transfer of EU citizens’ data to the US - being declared invalid.
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Sean Dempsey comments for The Telegraph: How much regulation is needed to secure an open economy?
26 September 2017Sean Dempsey commented in an article for The Telegraph discussing how businesses and regulatory bodies must not lose sight of workers’ rights and data protection as the way they work is transformed by technology.
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Employee liability information is not limited to contractual matters
25 September 2017The Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has ruled that the employee liability information (“ELI”) that a transferor is required to provide under regulation 11 of TUPE is not limited to contractual entitlements. In addition, the EAT decided that there is no obligation on the transferor to set out whether any entitlement is contractual or not.
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TUPE and collective agreements - static vs dynamic debate revisited
25 September 2017A judgment of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) in a German case has reconsidered the effect of a TUPE transfer on employment terms governed by a collective agreement. The issue to be determined was whether, once a business had transferred, the new employer was compelled to apply the terms and conditions arising from collective agreements adopted after that transfer.
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Service provision changes – determining principal purpose of organised grouping
25 September 2017The EAT has given guidance on the correct approach to determining the “principal purpose” of an organised grouping of employees within the meaning of the service provision change (“SPC”) rules under TUPE.
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Gender pay gap reporting – the story so far
25 September 2017It’s a little over five months since the first “snapshot date” of 5 April 2017 and less than seven months before the final deadline for employers with 250 or more UK staff to publish their first ever gender pay gap reports without incurring the wrath of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This seems as good a point as any to ask the question “Where are we now?”
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Automatic transfer of employees applies on ‘pre-pack’ sale
25 September 2017The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has confirmed that, in the event of a “pre-pack” sale aimed at rescuing all or part of an insolvent undertaking as a going concern, EU transfer of undertakings law requires that the employees automatically transfer. This is consistent with the position in the UK under TUPE.
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Bid to object to transfer fails because TUPE did not apply
22 September 2017The High Court has considered an employee’s attempt to escape a lengthy period of garden leave by objecting to a TUPE transfer when his employer was going through a change in ownership. This was a creative attempt by the employee to avoid his contractual notice obligations, but he ultimately failed due to the lack of one key ingredient - a TUPE transfer.
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Continuous service for notice pay preserved on transfer
22 September 2017The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has considered an interesting TUPE issue concerning continuous service, arising in a case referred by the Swedish Labour Court.
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Mansplaining, micro-inequities and managers
21 September 2017Over the years, awareness of discrimination has increased significantly. Almost everyone will (hopefully) be able to spot direct discrimination when they see it. For example, subjecting a gay worker to homophobic abuse, sacking a woman as soon as she announces her pregnancy, or telling a Muslim colleague that her hijab “made her look like a terrorist” (as was alleged in a recent Employment Tribunal claim).
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Taxation of termination payments updated legislation published
19 September 2017The Government proposes to make a number of changes to the tax and national insurance (“NI”) treatment of termination payments.
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Yahoo! We’re watching you… Monitoring employee communications
06 September 2017Monitoring an employee’s personal correspondence at work was a breach of human rights, according to a new ruling by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”). This reverses the ECtHR’s previous judgment in the same case in January 2016.
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Uber’s worker status appeal rejected
05 September 2017The Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has upheld the decision of an Employment Tribunal (“ET”) that drivers engaged by Uber are “workers” rather than independent contractors.
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Retail workers comparable to distribution centre workers for equal pay claim
05 September 2017The Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has ruled that individuals working in Asda’s retail stores can compare themselves with distribution centre workers in claims for equal pay.