If the UK introduced a piece of employment law to require all employees to be nice to each other in the workplace, then you would instantly and rightly dismiss it out of hand. What a ridiculous idea – how can you define what it is to be “nice” and without that, how can you determine … Continue Reading
There will be few in HR who have not at some point heard an employee say that he is so incensed by something said about him the course of disciplinary or grievance procedures that he is going to sue for defamation. This is almost always said in anger and for a great many very sensible … Continue Reading
Do you need to understand the essential provisions of global employment laws? Introducing Global Edge Lite (GE Lite), the compact version of our award-winning subscription-based tool, Global Edge. Covering up to 30 key jurisdictions, GE Lite is entirely free-to-use and allows you to access commercial and pragmatic information on some of the issues we most … Continue Reading
Your General Counsel receives a “cease and desist” letter from a competitor, alleging that the company’s new hire from that competitor has taken trade secrets and accusing the company of misappropriation. Your company has no need for those trade secrets and wants to compete fairly. What steps can be taken to forestall litigation? A recent … Continue Reading
A number of changes were introduced across the Gulf Cooperation Council states during the course of 2022 (several of which have now been implemented, while some are due to take effect later in 2023). In this article, the first of a short series covering those changes, we provide a brief summary of the key employment … Continue Reading
Squire Patton Boggs Summer Associate Jacob Williams details how new legislation in Colorado will impact employers’ use of non-competition covenants in the Centennial State. Adding to a growing nationwide trend placing restrictions on the use of non-competition agreements in employment contracts, Colorado is the most recent state to adopt exacting restrictions on employers’ use of … Continue Reading
On February 7, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, and on February 10, the U.S. Senate approved, a bill (the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (Act)) that would amend the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) so as to invalidate clauses in employment agreements requiring employees to arbitrate claims of sexual … Continue Reading
So is that it, then? Is Covid behind us for all practical purposes in England, no masks, no working from home, no vaccination passes, all going or gone? Or, in nearly the words of Mark Twain, are reports of the death of Plan B greatly exaggerated? Obviously, no one would suggest any connection between this … Continue Reading
Restrictive covenants are a common feature of many employment contracts. They are favoured by employers which want to ensure that departing employees will not solicit business, compete, poach clients or colleagues, and so on. When they are needed they are really needed and so this is an important question. It is always good practice to … Continue Reading
I will start this third part of our Working from Home series with a confession: I worked the first couple of weeks of lockdown from a small table dragged in from our balcony. Not because I don’t have a fully equipped and ergonomically approved home office, because I do. I just didn’t like the vibe … Continue Reading
At the risk of kicking in an open door, working from home and the return to the office has become this summer’s hot topic. In Belgium the pandemic has meant that working from home where you could was mandatory until the end of June. Employees are now gradually returning to the workplace but surveys show … Continue Reading
Squire Patton Boggs Summer Associate Gabrielle Martin summarizes substantial changes to Illinois’ Freedom to Work Act included in recently-passed legislation which will impose significant new requirements and limitations on the use of non-competition and non-solicitation covenants in Illinois. Joining an emerging trend among the states to place statutory limits on the ability of employers to … Continue Reading
Over 700 sign-ups for our Future of the Workplace webinar yesterday show much continuing uncertainty on the part of employers as to just what happens next in practical HR terms as the lock-down staggers to a scheduled end in June. As usual lots of questions were received through the chat facility, so we have combined … Continue Reading
It became increasingly clear over 2020 that the existing legislation on remote working was not fully up to the challenges faced by the Russian economy during the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular the need of some businesses to place very large numbers of employees onto compulsory remote working arrangements at short notice. On 8 December, therefore, … Continue Reading
Here is another question which came up more than once at last week’s webinar on Managing Working Parents but which I was unable to get to at the time. If you receive a flexible working application now, can you “park” it until things settle down and you have a clearer picture of what your post-pandemic … Continue Reading
We had several hundred sign-ups to our webinar on effective settlement agreements this week, so unfortunately did not get to deal with all the questions fed in through the chat box thingy on the screen. As promised, here are some of the answers – more to follow shortly.… Continue Reading
While we Belgians are generally known for being quite flexible in our use of foreign languages, we can be real sticklers when it comes to the use of language in the employment relationship.… Continue Reading
