Stephen joined our Manchester based corporate team as a partner in April 2018.
He has over 20 years of experience and his focus is mainly on company formations, mergers and takeovers, disposals and MBO/MBIs, as well as general commercial contracts and advice.
His clients are both regional and national and range from sole traders to large companies.
Outside of work, Bolton based Stephen enjoys going to the gym, supporting (for a very long time) Manchester City, gardening and spending time with his granddaughter.
Gareth joined Bermans in 2018, following qualification as a commercial litigation lawyer in the City and previous to that a successful career as a Premiership and international footballer.
He has accrued a wealth of experience in a wide range of white-collar crime matters, including SFO investigations and corporate compliance. The fusion of this specialist grounding and Gareth’s contact base has meant that he has developed niche expertise in complex high value tax fraud litigation and associated negligence actions as well as claims for restitution from mis-sold financial products.
He has also developed significant expertise in sports law, building on his extensive practical experience in the sporting industry.
He has been involved in numerous transfers and disputes concerning current and former players, including a leading Court of Arbitration for Sport case which resulted in changes being made to the rules. In addition, he is a member of the Football Association’s Judicial Panel and sits on both the Chairman’s Panel and the Football Panel. He is a member of Sports Resolutions’ independent Panel of Arbitrators and Mediators.
Do you use fixed term contracts? If you do, you might think that as long as you comply with the regulations which protect fixed term workers all will be fine. That’s not always the case, as the NHS Trust in Surrey found out.
Are you ready for the new data protection regime? The Government has published research saying that fewer than 50% of businesses are aware of what they need to do to get ready for the new regime which comes into force on 25 May this year. The EU General Data Protection Regulation and the new Data Protection Act 2018 create a new set of data privacy rules which all businesses and employers must follow. Potential fines for a breach of the new rules are enormous and could in extreme cases amount to the higher of 4% of annual turnover or 20 million Euros.
Sometimes things don’t go well with an employee. They may not perform well, their behaviour may not be up to scratch or they may just not be a ‘fit’ for your business. If this happens, you may want to have a confidential discussion with the employee with a view to them leaving the business, without having to go through a formal performance management or disciplinary procedure. In exchange for them signing a settlement agreement waiving their rights to bring a claim against you, you may choose to offer them a sum of money.
Employees who are whistleblowers have protection from dismissal and detriment (being treated badly) because they blew that whistle on their employers. These so called ‘protected disclosures’ could be disclosures of information about a criminal offence, or breach of health and safety, or other legal obligations. An example of a detriment is refusing to promote someone because they blew the whistle on you.
For the first time in contested proceedings since the law came into force in 2011, a commercial organisation has been convicted of failing to prevent bribery under section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010.
An employee who refused to do work after suffering a discriminatory demotion has lost his court case. Mr Rochford was Senior Vice President of a WNS Global Services. He was off work for a year with a back condition (which was a disability). He eventually returned to work on full pay. However, his employer refused to allow him to do his full role or say when he could go back to full duties. Instead they gave him fewer duties, but on the same pay. This demotion related to his disability and therefore amounted to disability discrimination. As a result, he refused to do any work at all and was eventually dismissed for misconduct.
We recently prepared for trial a Funder’s defence to a claim which raised a number of difficult issues in relation to the annual statements required for a fixed sum credit agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (“CCA”). In the event the matter settled before trial but a number of interesting points arose and are worth considering.
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