A company director has been held personally liable for the discriminatory dismissal of a pregnant employee. The director owned and ran an estate agency. He was the sole shareholder. One of his employees gave him a letter confirming that she was pregnant. Within minutes of reading the letter, he told her that she was being
There is to be a new Unitary Patent providing protection across 25 countries in the European Union. The move is designed to help European firms protect themselves against the growing problem of copyright piracy. One of the difficulties at the moment is that there is no single patent covering the whole of Europe. Firms have
A director has been found guilty of wrongful trading after taking money for services his company could not provide. The director was the sole shareholder of a company that tried to provide a DX mailing service. He allowed an employee to market the business and take advance payments from customers who entered into contracts for
A commercial tenant failed to exercise a break clause correctly because it was still carrying out repairs to the leased premises after the day it should have given up vacant possession. The case involved a company that had two break options on a warehouse that it leased. The first date was for April 2009 and
The Government plans to release enough public land to build 100,000 new homes. Housing Minister Grant Shapps is urging developers to come forward to take advantage of this new opportunity which could help create 25,000 jobs by 2015. Mr Shapps has told Government departments with significant land banks that by this Autumn, they must publish
A corporate landlord has been left with a bill of £270,000 after failing to consult properly with tenants. The case involved five leaseholders at a block of flats which required major renovation. The landlord was entitled to recover most of the cost through service charges as long as there was full consultation with the tenants.
It is now four years since tenancy deposit protection schemes were introduced yet some people still don’t realise they are a legal requirement, according to the Residential Landlords Association (RLA). The RLA says it still gets calls from landlords and managing agents who have misunderstood the schemes and how they work. One landlord thought he
A company must repay £200,000 after failing to carry out work to a high enough standard on a property it was selling. The company had entered into a contract with a buyer which required that a number of renovation and conversion works should be carried out before completion. The buyer paid a £100,000 deposit followed
Employment claims look set to continue rising, according to an official report by the Tribunal Service. This is in spite of the fact that claims are already at record levels. Judge David Latham, who is president of the employment section of the Tribunal Service, says there have been several new employment laws over the last
The Competition Appeal Tribunal has ruled that penalties imposed on construction firms for using cover pricing were too harsh and should be reduced. The Tribunal said it was important to make a distinction between simple cover pricing and bid rigging, which is much more serious. Bid rigging involved firms joining forces as a cartel in