Employment Tribunal

On 26 July 2017 the Government announced that it had temporarily suspended enforcement activity and that it was officially waiving historic financial penalties owed by employers who have underpaid their workers for overnight sleep-in shifts before this date.  It has also prevented HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) from pursuing social care charities over any historical […]

The London Employment Tribunal recently decided that drivers working for the taxi hailing app Uber fell fully within the definition of a ‘worker’ for purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996. They dismissed as ‘faintly ridiculous’ Uber’s assertion that the drivers were self-employed contractors. UK employment law provides for different levels of protection, depending on […]

. . .and, it seems, he may have every right to do so. . . If only it was that simple.  In fact, monitoring in the workplace (for example, CCTV and emails) raises a host of legal issues under: the Data Protection Act 1998 the Code of Practice issued by the Information Commission’s Office (ICO) […]

The position taken by HMRC that an employer must continue to provide childcare vouchers as part of a salary sacrifice scheme during an employee’s maternity leave has been challenged by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in the recent case of Peninsula Business Services v Donaldson. The Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999 (MPLR) state that […]

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has upheld the finding of the employment tribunal in the case of Lock v British Gas Trading Limited that the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) can and should be read to require employers to include commission paid to workers when calculating the rate of pay for a worker’s “European” holiday […]

A recent landmark employment law ruling in the UK’s first ‘Caste discrimination’ case What is Caste? Caste systems involve the division of people into social groups. The idea of ‘caste’ is rooted in Hindu society and it is suggested that caste discrimination affects approximately 260 million people worldwide, the vast majority living in South Asia. […]

Jose Mourinho is once again the talk of the back pages, but this time it’s for all the wrong reasons. The self-proclaimed ‘special one’ may have landed the Blues in a crisis after a series of highly publicised events that he has been at the centre of. With many pundits speculating that time is ticking […]

In March our blog looked at the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill (SBEE) which was introduced in the last Queen’s Speech. Earlier this month our corporate team provided a commercial update of the SBEE. This latest update will focus on the employment law aspects of the SBEE. Penalty for underpayment of the national minimum […]

In February 2014 I blogged about how UNISON had failed to persuade the High Court to quash the Employment Tribunal fee regime that was introduced in July 2013. One of the main reasons for the failure of the original challenge, was that that the Court felt the application for judicial review had been made too […]

The introduction of Employment Tribunal Fees Fees were introduced into Employment Tribunal proceedings (which had previously been free for all parties) on 29 July 2013. Since that date: Claimants have to pay a fee to submit a claim, a further fee for the tribunal hearing and another fee if they want to appeal against the […]

On 7 February 2014 Unison, the UK’s largest union failed to persuade the High Court to quash the new employment tribunal fee regime. In their judgment, Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Irwin said that the “fundamental flaw in these proceedings is that they are premature and that the evidence at this stage lacks that […]

The final battle between Lord Sugar and Stella English has left the Apprentice star ‘over the moon’ that she has not had to pay the £50,000 legal costs after losing the claim against Sugar for constructive dismissal. Following the case from the beginning, the 2010 winner claimed the show was a sham after resigning from […]