The Government is considering how they can make the tax and National Insurance treatment of taxation of termination payments simpler and fairer and is seeking views from interested parties as to how this can be achieved. At present, there is a £30,000.00 termination payment which can be made free of tax and National Insurance providing […]
Tag: settlement agreements
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 […]
Protected conversations
Historically employers have been concerned over without prejudice discussions and whether they can be relied on later. Some employers are scared of saying the wrong thing or whether they are doing the right thing. The difficulty with without prejudice is that there has to be a dispute between the parties. Something that in itself can […]
Review of 2013
On a quiet news week I have been giving some thought to the changes of 2013. These have been vast on both a personal and employment law front. This year for me has been a change in professional roles for the better. Those of you that know me well know I now wear more than […]
Settlement Agreements
Here in the UK the only regional differences in settlement agreements are the normal rates for advice contained within them. In some regions the legal fees are £500 plus VAT as standard and the lowest I have seen recently just £200 plus VAT. The same cannot be said for the UK and Ireland. In Ireland, […]
The problem with Haringey
This blog is not about the rights and wrongs of the decision to dismiss Sharon Shoesmith following the Baby P case in Haringey, although I am sure many readers have a view on the subject. Instead, it is about the misreporting of the case itself. I am sure we have all read the press coverage […]
Confidentiality in Settlement Agreements
You may recall that there has been much press coverage over the past 12 months or so about the use of compromise agreements/settlement agreements particularly in the public sector where employees are being exited and asked to sign confidentiality clauses in return for their settlement. The use of “gagging clauses” is widespread but in the […]
Improper behaviour in settlement discussions
Settlement discussions and pre-termination remain the hot topic at the moment as they bed into practice. The discussions are confidential and cannot be used in evidence in ordinary unfair dismissal cases. No such rules apply in automatically unfair dismissal cases or other claims such as discrimination claims. If the discussions arose out of an existing dispute […]
Settlement Agreements
The new settlement agreements are now of course in place to replace “compromise agreements”. These apply to all employment law claims. There are of course no such stringent requirements to settle an ordinary contractual dispute before the County Court. The age old rules of offer, acceptance and consideration apply here. Rather unfortunate that the firm […]