Financiers have been, together with almost all other litigants, subject to what seems to be an ever-increasing spiral of expense in navigating the various fees and charges payable under the court system, a trend which is been in place now for almost 2 decades.
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Adrian Fryer
Last month saw the tabling in the House of Commons of the EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. If brought into force, the Bill provides that all EU derived legislation will fall away unless it is specifically retained by a certain date (December 2023, with the option to extend until December 2026).
That means that employment law staples, including TUPE, part-time/fixed-term worker regulations and holiday pay rules may disappear. The government will decide which laws it wants to retain. There is no indication yet of what’s likely to be in and out.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
Section 123(1) of the Equality Act 2010 says that discrimination claims must be brought within three months of the alleged discriminatory act or such other period that the tribunal thinks is ‘just and equitable’ in the circumstances. An extension of time will be the exception not the rule. The tribunal can consider anything it thinks is relevant when making that decision, including the length of the delay and the reasons for it, the effect of delay on the cogency of evidence and how quickly the employee acted once they knew that they had a potential legal claim. The employment appeal tribunal (EAT) has looked at a case recently where the tribunal had considered the merits of the potential claim when deciding whether to grant an extension of time.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
Employees are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ holiday under the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR). Calculating the holiday pay of someone with no normal working hours can be tricky. Some employers have adopted a percentage approach, by assuming that holiday accrues at a rate of 12.07% of hours worked.
This is based on the following calculation: 52 weeks – 5.6 weeks’ holiday = 46.4 weeks; and 5.6 weeks is 12.07% of 46.4 weeks. The Supreme Court has looked recently at whether this is the right thing to do and what happens when an employee is both part time and only works at certain times of the year, for example on a term time only basis.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
When there is a TUPE transfer, all of the transferor’s (the original employer) rights, powers, duties and liabilities connected to the transferring employee’s contract of employment transfer to the transferee (the new employer). The EAT has looked recently at whether a share incentive plan (SIP), whose terms are contained in a collateral contract rather than the contract of employment, transfers during a TUPE transfer.
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Adrian Fryer
Communication between a client and their solicitors for the purposes of getting legal advice, and any documents prepared for the purposes of litigation, are ‘privileged’. This means that they do not have to be disclosed to the other party during any legal proceedings. In University of Dundee v Chakraborty, the employer argued that an original grievance investigation report acquired retrospective privilege and therefore did not need to be disclosed in proceedings.
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Adrian Fryer
Employers may be familiar with employees seeking extensions of time to lodge late employment tribunal claims, for a variety of reasons. In MTN-1 v Daly, the EAT was faced with a case where the boot was on the other foot, and it was the employer who needed more time.
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Adrian Fryer
Can continued lateness justify dismissal? The EAT in Tijani v The House of Commons Commission held that it could. The employee had been a cleaner at the House of Commons since June 2015. She was given a first written warning in December 2017 for being late 17 out of 20 days. She got a final written warning, to stay in place for 24 months, for continued lateness in April 2018. The employee didn’t appeal and was told that further absence could result in dismissal. She was still frequently between 2 and 33 minutes late – 43 more times by January 2019 and 7 additional late arrivals before the formal process began. The employee was dismissed. She appealed, but the appeals officer said her record showed no significant improvement even discounting the times when she was late by only a couple of minutes. The appeal failed.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
Acas has published new guidance for employers on using the right to suspend as part of a disciplinary process. Suspension is often touted as a neutral act – to maintain the status quo during an investigation and protect evidence, witnesses, and the business.
However, it can feel anything but neutral to the suspended employee who may be entirely innocent of the allegations raised against them.
Continue ReadingAdrian Fryer
Most employers will have experienced an employee who suffers badly with a bout of Covid, and which then develops into post-Covid-19 syndrome, or ‘long Covid’.
An employment tribunal has looked at a case where an employee tried to bring a discrimination claim linked to her long-Covid, in relation to a dismissal which took place only a couple of weeks after her initial Covid infection.
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