How easy is it for an employer to impose a pay freeze? In Abrahall v Nottingham City Council, the Court of Appeal decided that a group of employees had not ‘agreed’ to a pay freeze when they continued to work without protest afterwards. In 2011, the Council imposed a two year pay freeze. The recognised unions objected, but did not raise a formal grievance. Two years went by before the Council tried to freeze pay again in 2013. At that point, employees brought claims for unlawful deduction from wages based on their contractual right to a pay rise.
Sections 43A-43L of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protect workers who report malpractice (a ‘disclosure’) by their employer and are then treated badly. For a disclosure to be protected it must contain ‘information’ which the employee reasonably believes is in the public interest. It must also show some sort of wrongdoing (such as a criminal offence or breach of a legal obligation). Can an allegation be ‘information’?
High sickness absence can place huge pressure on a business. How easy is it to take disciplinary action against a disabled employee for high sickness absence? The Employment Appeal Tribunal has looked at this issue recently in a case where the employee was absent for 60 days in a 12-month period.
The FCA has published new versions of the information sheets that consumer credit firms must use to accompany arrears and default notices. Firms are required to use the new versions from 27 July 2018.
The Joint Money Laundering Steering Group (JMLSG) has published a revised version of the Asset Finance sectors in Part II of its guidance on the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism for the UK financial services industry.
“We are not looking for perfection. We do not have thousands of inspectors going out and checking people’s homework. What we do have are millions of people that have new rights and they can make a complaint against a company to our office”.
Last July we wrote this article about three recent cases of identity fraud in property sales. In each case a fraudster impersonated the vendor and then absconded with the proceeds paid by the would-be purchasers, leaving the latter to try and sue either their solicitors or the ones acting for the fraudster.
We reported in the Winter 2017 edition of the Briefing that we had been informed by BEIS that they were content with a revised form of the Business Contract Terms (Restrictions on Assignment of Receivables) Regulations, which were first proposed as long ago as December 2014.
Whatever might eventually happen with Brexit, most informed observers will have recently had cause to reflect upon the differential between data protection law in the European Union and that in other advanced jurisdictions such as the US. The recent publicity involving Facebook has emphasised the fact that European Union law is light-years ahead of other mature jurisdictions in this respect.
Do you have to reconsider a decision to dismiss an employee if you later find out she is pregnant? Ms Thompson was employed by Really Easy Car Credit, to do online telesales. She had worked there for a short time before discovering she was pregnant. During that time her performance was described as “average at best” and her employer raised various conduct issues with her. Ms Thompson took a day off sick. Unknown to her employer she went to hospital for a scan to find out whether she had miscarried.
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