In its July employment briefing, Walker Morris reported on the new employee shareholder status contracts that came into force on 1 September 2013. In stark contrast to the amount of publicity and debate on this subject, reported take-up so far has been negligible. The government has now published guidance on the new contracts as well as separate […]
Manchester firm Express Solicitors has increased its turnover from £5.3m in 2011/12 to £7.2m in 2012/13. A key part of Express Solicitor’s success has been an increased emphasis on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimisation (SEO) over the past year. The firm’s original budget for PPC and SEO marketing was £5,000 per month, but […]
Park Cakes Ltd v Shumba and others [2013] EWCA Civ 974 dealt with the question of whether an employer’s enhanced redundancy package had been implied into employees’ contracts of employment by custom and practice. There has been much case law on this subject over the years and the general position is that an enhanced package cannot […]
One might be forgiven for thinking that dismissal will inevitably fall within the band of reasonable responses in a case of gross misconduct. Brito-Babapulle v Ealing Hospital NHS Trust UKEAT/0358/12 states otherwise — it would be an error of law to hold that summary dismissal is always a reasonable penalty for gross misconduct because this […]
HR professionals often have to grapple with the question of whether to discount sickness absences for disabled employees in order to avoid falling foul of the duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments. This is particularly so when common viral infections such as colds and flu are exacerbated by a disability such as […]
By Nicholas Jew One of the less welcome employment law reforms implemented by the coalition government has been the decision to do away with the practice that new employment law is implemented only in April and October. However, despite the legislative free-for-all of the past few months, there are still some key employment law changes […]
From 1 October 2013, the directors’ remuneration report in quoted companies (not AIM-listed companies) will need to contain information about the company’s directors’ remuneration policy and how it was implemented for that year. Once a remuneration policy has been approved, a company will only be able to make remuneration and loss-of-office payments that are permitted […]
This High Court case is a reminder of the importance of ensuring that all settlement negotiations are marked ‘subject to contract’ until the point where the formal written agreement is executed. If agreement has been reached on the amount of compensation but there are still points to be agreed on tax, benefits, announcements, confidentiality or the […]
In early September, the government issued its response to consultation on TUPE. The once-threatened ‘service provision change’ rule has been given a reprieve and will not be abolished. This is welcome news as it avoids a return to the pre-2006 legal uncertainty as to whether or not a service provision change fell within TUPE. The TUPE regulations […]
Walker Morris reported on the case of USDAW v Ethel Austin Ltd (in administration) and another case, UKEAT/0547/12; 0548/12 (otherwise known as the ‘Woolworths case’), in its recent business insight. The case was a landmark decision on collective redundancy law holding that the words ‘at one establishment’ should be totally excised from the Trade Union […]
There has been a lot of speculation recently in the Russian airline industry about future prospects for budget carriers. Recent examples of unsuccessful ‘low-cost’ start-ups demonstrate that one of the principal reasons for the underdevelopment of this segment in Russia is insufficient legislation. Both airlines and the Ministry of Transport have recently put forward proposals […]
September’s TUC conference fixed the spotlight on zero-hours contracts. In the UK, around one million workers are employed on such contracts under which they remain ‘on call’ but with no guaranteed work. At the TUC conference, the Labour party outlined proposals to outlaw such contracts in their current form, notably to give anyone working for […]