Archives

Dismissal without prejudice – fact or fiction? (UK)

It’s not generally too difficult to know when you’ve been dismissed.  Your P45 arrives, colleagues avoid eye contact and your entry pass stops working.  But sometimes it’s not so clear and where your statutory or contractual rights may hang upon it, you cannot afford not to be sure. In Meaker – v – Cyxtera Technology … Continue Reading

The German Whistleblower Act: the never-ending story approaches its end, maybe

Last April, the Federal Ministry of Justice in Germany published a draft bill – the Whistleblower Protection Act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz/HinSchG) – to implement its obligations under the EU Whistleblowing Directive. The legislation should have come into force by last Autumn, but there have been various delays and it now looks more likely to be Summer this … Continue Reading

What’s new in Belgium on the employment front, Part 2 – rolling out the biking allowance

In the first part of our mini blog series we discussed the training plan you are required to introduce for your employees in Belgium before 31 March. In this second blog, we will zoom in on the biking allowance which was introduced recently. Although we are not quite at the level of the Dutch (the … Continue Reading

Knew this would happen – entirely predictable problems with new working patterns Bill (UK)

Last week the government voiced its support for the new Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill, the endeavour of MP Scott Benton to combat “one-sided flexibility”, where “workers are on stand-by for work which never comes”, it says in the BEIS press release.  This is a belated by-product of the Taylor Good Work Report in … Continue Reading

Increased liabilities under new draft Code on dismissal and re-engagement – evidence is all (UK)

Back in November 20201 we reported here on some new Acas guidance on changing terms of employment through dismissal and re-engagement, and in November last year on the Government’s intention to issue a new statutory Code on that practice here. A first draft of that Code has now landed and we can exclusively report that … Continue Reading

Belgium finally transposes the Whistleblowers Directive – fashionably late, but worth the wait?

Roughly a year late, but here we are then: Belgium has finally transposed the Whistleblowers Directive into national law. The Act of 28 November 2022 on the protection of reporters of breaches of Union or national law discovered within a legal entity in the private sector sets out the rules for companies in the private … Continue Reading

Wedded to The Law – striking marital discrimination failure explained (UK)

As the next in our occasional series of posts about The Law, here is a new Employment Appeal Tribunal decision so morally unjust that even the Judge himself didn’t want to make it. Mrs Bacon was married to the majority shareholder of their joint employer, Advanced Fire Solutions Limited.  She was also employee, director and … Continue Reading

For the sake of argument  – EAT reviews without prejudice rules (UK)

Christmas being a season of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, so they say despite all the evidence, here is a quick festive look at just how confrontational things have to become in order to constitute a dispute at law. The question is a surprisingly important one, since on the existence of a … Continue Reading

New EAT employee status decision fails to make a virtue out of necessity (UK)

There is a long-established legal principle that you can only imply an employment relationship in the face of a contract saying something different if it is necessary to do so, i.e. if the found facts of the relationship are not consistent with any other explanation, in particular, worker status or genuine self-employment.  Until the Court … Continue Reading

Possible impact of Brexit on UK employment law – some informed guesses

So if in some parallel universe you had somehow acquired the ability to strike red lines through EU-derived employment legislation, where would you put them? That is a question I put well before the Brexit Referendum to countless HR audiences, the very people one might think would be straining at the leash to make changes … Continue Reading

UK Business Immigration – changes to Guidance on UK start dates for sponsored workers

The Home Office has updated its ‘Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors’. The changes affect UK employers with sponsor licences and provide clarification on how to amend a sponsored worker’s start date in the UK after their visa has been granted. Sponsors should take note of the changes in order to comply with their … Continue Reading

New redundancy criteria decision not all that it seems (UK)

So, quick, answer me this – when making redundancies outside the collective consultation rules, do you need to consult with the affected employees about the selection criteria relied upon or only as to the proposed impact of those criteria on that person? Traditional wisdom would point to the latter. The selection criteria are a matter … Continue Reading

A step into the unknown – waiving future claims by settlement agreements (UK)

You would think that in the twenty-plus years since they were first introduced as an alternative to the Acas COT3, all that could be said about the law relating to settlement agreements would have been said.  However, along now comes the Scottish Employment Appeal Tribunal in Bathgate –v- Technip UK Limited and Others with a … Continue Reading

Right to Work Checks for UK Employers from 1 October 2022 – be prepared for changes but beware misleading information

UK employers are generally aware of the need to carry out prescribed checks to ensure their employees have the right to work, and the consequences of illegal employment (civil penalty of £20,000, risk to sponsor licence or, in extreme cases, criminal prosecution).  But the way in which the Home Office says these checks must be … Continue Reading

In the market for worker status advice? – new Guidance fails to deliver (UK)

The thing about one-stop shops is that if they do not stock what you want, they become next best thing to useless.  Anyway, welcome to the government’s new Guidance on Employment Status, expressly billed in the accompanying press release as meeting all your worker status needs in one handy document. … Continue Reading

A brief and not excessively taxing guide to quiet-quitting (UK)

If you are in the habit of taking your life-advice from Tik Tok, you will have seen encouragement recently to join the “quiet-quitters”. These are the Gen Z workers who make a conscious decision to do the bare minimum at work, those who have “left the building” mentally (and if hybrid working, also physically) but … Continue Reading
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