There is a familiar legal concept, which is that the Court can delete parts of a restriction to make it enforceable. The High Court has taken this a step further in the recent decision of Prophet Plc v Huggett [2014] where the Court read words into the restrictive covenant to produce a commercially sensible result. […]
Sarah King Employment Solicitor
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News
ACAS early conciliation goes live
Today is the first working day after ACAS early conciliation came into being. For the next month it will be optional before it becomes mandatory on 5th May 2014. The new ACAS early conciliation website is here. Before a Claimant presents an Employment Tribunal Claim for relevant proceedings, the prospective Claimant must provide information to […]
Flexible Working rights extended
The current position is that only workers with children (or responsible for them) or those with caring responsibilities have the right to request to work flexibly. It is important to note that this is not a right to get the flexible working but merely a right to request it, as this is a common misconception. There […]
New ET Guidance
Sometimes it is not possible to resolve work place disputes or agree a settlement agreement and it is necessary to bring a claim before the Employment Tribunal. The President has issued new guidance for those finding themselves in the Employment Tribunal process. Whilst not binding the Tribunal must have regard to the guidance and it […]
Surrogacy and maternity leave
Further to my earlier posts, we now have a ruling from the European Court of Justice on this issue. The ECJ has held that a commissioning mother (who receives a child via a surrogacy) does not have the right to maternity leave under the Pregnant Workers Directive. The aim of the Directive is to protect […]
Covert recordings
Nowadays almost every employee has access to recording equipment thanks to the modern day smart phone. There are many apps or inbuilt programmes that allow the device owner to make recordings. This can present a new challenge to employers where employees covertly record disciplinary and grievance meetings particularly where this includes deliberations and adjournments. In […]
Sex discrimination and post natal depression
The EAT has upheld a decision of the ET in Lyons v DWP Jobcentre Plus that a woman, who was dismissed having been off sick for several months after the end of her maternity leave, had not been discriminated against because of pregnancy or sex. s18 of the Equality Act 2010 sets out that pregnancy […]
Shared parental leave
The Government has published the draft Shared Parental Leave Regulations 2014, which will bring into force the ability for parents to share leave and pay for babies due on or after 5th April 2015. The Regulations are only in draft and consultation ends today on their content but they currently contain a great deal of […]
Pre-claim conciliation through ACAS
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 […]
Illegality and discrimination
An employee working under an illegal contract may be prevented from relying on statutory or contractual employment rights. As far back as 1978, it was held that it was against public policy for employees with illegal contracts to pursue an unfair dismissal claim. The position as to discrimination claims is less clear. The cases are […]
(Our news section brings you the latest news on published judgments and cases which are all in the public domain. We only comment on these published cases and not cases of our actual clients. Publication of the case or comments is a public service designed to make the courts and tribunals more accessible and ensures justice is seen to be done. This is why court and tribunal judgments are published publicly.)