In a blog post last August I asked the question “what are zero hours contracts and how do they work in practice?”. I pointed out that there is no formal legal definition of a zero hours contract and it is therefore merely a description of a type of working arrangement that has become more popular…
Mrs Butcher started work for the veterinary practice Croft Vets in 1996. Over time the practice expanded and she was promoted to finance and reception manager. In the period from 2007 to 2010 the practice opened a new hospital and acquired new phone and IT systems, both of which suffered the inevitable teething troubles, all…
Lockwood v Department of Work and Pensions & Anor is an illustration of how a directly discriminatory redundancy scheme can be justified. Under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, introduced in 1987, redundancy payments are weighted in favour of older workers. Specifically, workers taking voluntary redundancy were entitled to one month’s pay for each year of…
Guarantee payments are fairly rarely encountered in practice, but in times of economic hardship they are likely to be encountered more frequently. Abercrombie & Others v AGA Rangemaster Ltd is, according to the Court itself, probably the first case of its kind to reach the Court of Appeal. Guarantee payments are payments that an employer…
In Coppage & Anor v Safety Net Security Ltd the Court of Appeal looked at the reasonableness of a six month non solicitation covenant entered into by Mr Coppage, a director of a security company which supplied door supervisors and other security staff. The covenant was expressed so that it would cover anyone who had…
What are the essential characteristics of a contract of employment? This much discussed topic has been the subject of a great deal of judicial scrutiny in recent decades. Various tests such as “master and servant” and the “control test”, as well as characteristics such as “mutuality of obligation” and the “requirement for personal service” have…
Under the State Immunity Act 1978 (“the SIA”), sovereign states are not generally subject to the jurisdiction of UK courts and tribunals. The point is well demonstrated by the extraordinary extent to which the London Congestion Charge is ignored by diplomats. Disputes relating to contracts of employment, and related statutory rights, are carved out from…
On 13 November the Central London Employment Tribunal handed down its reserved decision in the case of McCririck v Channel 4 Television Corporation and IMG Media Limited. Given the celebrity status of the Claimant the case attracted a good deal of attention. IMG took over the contract to broadcast all terrestrial coverage of horse racing…