Whistleblowing has been well and truly in the news this month and on 26 February the government announced a strengthening of the protection provided to those who make disclosures. The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill is to be amended to include protection for employees who suffer bullying or harassment from co-workers. At present the only…
Another new Supreme Court decision (Prudential plc & Anor, R (on the application of) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax & Anor) looks at the extent of legal advice privilege, and in particular whether parties to disputes can be ordered to disclose legal advice from advisers such as accountants. The advice in question in this…
Demotion and/or redeployment are relatively rare as potential outcomes of disciplinary procedures, not least because it would be a risky strategy to impose them without an express contractual power. Piper v Maidstone & Tunbridge NHS Trust demonstrates a pitfall for employers who do include these penalties in their disciplinary procedures. Reverend Piper was Head Chaplain…
Reinstatement and re-engagement are remedies a tribunal must consider whenever a claimant indicates a desire for either of them. Arriva London Ltd v Eleftheriou deals with the matter of when a tribunal finds that a dismissal is unfair, but on the facts there is a chance that the claimant would have been dismissed fairly had…
Employers should take care to investigate allegations of dishonesty involving breach of trust particularly carefully, suggests the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Stuart v London City Airport. Mr Stuart was one of 430 ground services employees at London City Airport who was dismissed for gross misconduct. It was alleged that he had gone to a duty…
Aderemi v London and South Eastern Railway Ltd gives some useful pointers about what sort of disability will be a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. – While an inability to carry out all your work duties does not equate to an inability to carry out day to day activities, it should not be…
The government is firming up on some of the many proposals to change employment law mooted in recent months, so we have a rash of consultation papers to digest and implementation dates to look forward to. (What happened to only introducing changes in April and October, to give employers a bit of a chance to…
Last month I reported the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of Celestine Mba v London Borough of Merton and, as promised, I am now returning to the issue of religious observance in the context of employment law. The decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the combined cases…
As I reported last December, the Government has proceeded with its annual uprating of maximum tribunal awards notwithstanding plans to limit compensation for unfair dismissal. The main new compensation maximum limits where the “appropriate date” (for example date of dismissal) is on or after 1 February 2013 and as they now stand are set out…