On 6th April 2014, compulsory early conciliation arrives. The Regulations have now been published and when I have got to grip with the detail and mechanics I will provide a more detailed blog post about the system. As always the devil is in the detail and there is much detail.

In the meantime, so you know what to expect here is a short summary.  All potential Tribunal and EAT claimants will be obliged to engage in pre-claim conciliation for a month in an attempt to reach settlement with their employers via ACAS before bringing their claims. All discussions are on a without prejudice basis and the time period of one month can be extended by a further two weeks. The clock stops running for time limits whilst talks are underway as far as Claimants who engage are concerned. The rules around this are complex and it remains to be seen how this works on a practical level and whether this will confuse participants and result in missed limitation periods particularly for the unrepresented.

As always watch this space….