Meet E. He is the poor soul at the heart of this week’s new statutory instrument concerning the rights of employees who are dismissed on or after furlough. E is anxious that if he is dismissed while on furlough or soon after he comes off it, then his reduced earnings over that period will prejudice … Continue Reading
The logical extension from the discovery that all or most or your staff can work from home without anything catastrophic happening is to ask yourself whether you actually need an office in the first place. Obviously it has potential advantages in terms of staff cohesion and corporate identity, but decisions are being made across the … Continue Reading
The striking down of the Privacy Shield by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last week may have significant consequences for UK and EU employers which are headquartered in the US or which otherwise transfer the personal data of their employees to that country. Brief history – the original EU Data Protection … 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
In the innocent days of early 2020 investment research firm MSCI predicted that this would be the year that “ESG storms the CFO’s office, elbowing its way onto their bottom line as financiers get creative with ways to bind ESG criteria to their terms of capital, introducing a plethora of corporate borrowers into the wide … Continue Reading
On top of the flexible working rules (see Parts 1-3), another piece of existing law likely to get a pandemic-related dusting-off in the months to come is our old friend whistleblowing. If you face what is otherwise a fairly clear redundancy situation because Covid-19 has gutted your employer’s market, what better way of upping the … Continue Reading
The Belgian government is acutely aware that businesses will feel the impact of the Covid-19 crisis well beyond the summer months. To that end, a new set of measures was decided during the Inner Cabinet meeting of 12 June. Information on these measures is still scarce, but we thought we’d share the highlights with you … Continue Reading
At the start of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) I wrote that if the Government’s political legacy through the pandemic were to have any chance of surviving intact in the eyes of employers, the Scheme would have to be above all clear and easy for employers to use. Even though parts of the guidance … Continue Reading
If we are right to think that the unravelling of lockdown will be accompanied by a sharp increase in the number of employees requesting to work from home, then many employers will shortly start to face some serious posers in relation to the flexible working scheme. These are not new questions, but will be thrown into … Continue Reading
By now, many employees working from home in the lockdown will have made quite firm decisions around how they wish to operate going forward. Some will have decided that there is nothing in their lives quite like their family and, for that reason, that they wish to extend their WFH indefinitely. Others, on probably very … Continue Reading
The world of work has remained broadly the same for the last 100 to 200 years – offices might have lost the wood panelling, trains become less smoky (inside and out!), top hats turned into bowler hats then no hats, beards have gone in, out, then back into fashion, but the central tenet remains – … Continue Reading
In an attempt to keep Covid-19 out of the workplace, many employers have been inquiring about the possibility of performing temperature checks before employees enter their premises each day. The Belgian Ministry of Employment’s position until last week was fairly relaxed: its FAQ document referred to the stance taken by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, … Continue Reading
Quite a fun little case on TUPE this week, if you like that sort of thing (and on the upside, even if you don’t, at least it has nothing to do with COVID-19). Regulation 4(4) of TUPE states that TUPE-related changes to terms of employment are void in most circumstances. This has long been read … Continue Reading
In a previous blog, we mentioned in mildly critical tones that the Belgian government still hadn’t issued a regulation on a proposed special “Corona leave” for young parents struggling to balance (home)work and the care of their children. It could just be coincidence, obviously, but the very next day the government reached agreement on the … Continue Reading
So now that the slow movement back to workplaces has started, the next hot question will be this: “If I don’t want to go back in because I fear infection if I do, can my employer make me?” The short and absolutely definitively answer to this is no. And yes. It cannot compel you to … Continue Reading
There are four main moving parts to bringing people back to work, only two of which were mentioned by the Prime Minister in his speech last night. He made clear very properly the continued focus on health (particularly the R factor – the rate at which one person with the virus is likely to infect … Continue Reading
As from 4 May, Belgium will gradually start the long haul out of lockdown. And when we say “gradually”, that may still be an understatement: in a PowerPoint presentation longer than the Harry Potter series and containing much less magic, the country’s Prime Minister has explained to the media each of the seemingly endless phases … Continue Reading
Trying to find the most depressing part of the new House of Lords’ Economic Affairs Committee report on IR35 is not easy. There are so many possible candidates, for one thing, and as an insight into the legislative process it is little short of terrifying. Not even law by twitter like the Job Retention Scheme, … Continue Reading
In a previous blog, in a world before the coronavirus hit Europe, we noted the social elections that Belgian employers have to organise in 2020 [here] for the appointment of employee representatives to the Works Council and Health & Safety Committee. Being a representative of that sort (and also being a candidate for that role) … Continue Reading
A well-known term of the CJRS is that the employee shouldn’t while on furlough do any work for the employer or provide any services to it. A simple enough proposition, one might think, despite the unknown pundit whose wise words appear above, but as with much of this Scheme, once you get down into the … Continue Reading
Earlier this week, Mr Justice Snowden gave the first judgment on the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme [here]. Rather than bask in the Bank Holiday sunshine digging into his Easter eggs, he sought to bring clarity to some of the more murky aspects of the scheme – specifically, how the Scheme operates when the employer … Continue Reading
It is very hard to criticise the conception of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, but it is unfortunately becoming increasingly easy to take objection to the manner of its implementation. HMRC Chief Executive Jim Harra told the BBC last week that in the preparation of the Scheme, “time, in some senses, has been the enemy … Continue Reading
Here is a quick glimpse behind the scenes of parliamentary process – some highlights from the Parliamentary Treasury Committee meeting yesterday when officials from HMRC were quizzed by the Committee about the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, plus some thoughts of our own in bold. The new scheme will be up and running on 20 April … Continue Reading
Credit where credit is due: even though we still don’t have a new Belgian government, our interim government has been extremely efficient and pragmatic in introducing measures to combat the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.… Continue Reading
