Read our latest articles, news briefs and legal updates across all our different services.
A woman who suffered with mental health problems has been awarded more than £11,000 compensation after her employer failed to deal properly with her request to work fewer hours. Marie-Claire McLaughlin worked for the Charles Hurst car firm when she began to suffer from depression and panic attacks. She asked for reduced hours but her
Parents who lose a child under the age of 18 are to be given the right to two weeks’ paid leave to allow them time to grieve. The government says the allowance will be one of the most generous in the world. Currently under the Employment Rights Act, employees have a day-one right to take
The Court of Appeal has ruled that a teacher’s dismissal was at the extreme end of reasonable but was not unfair. The teacher had been dismissed following a disciplinary hearing. Her internal appeal was dismissed after the panel found that she had repeatedly failed to follow reasonable management requests to attend meetings; had communicated in
A woman who was estranged from her father has been awarded £30,000 from his estate even though he disinherited his children in his will. The court heard that Stanley Nahajec had left all his £265,000 estate to a friend. His three children got nothing. Elena Nahajec, the only child from Mr Nahajec’s second marriage, made
An engineer who was dismissed after his employer monitored his emails has won his appeal that his right to privacy had been breached. The case involved a Romanian company that set up an IT system and Yahoo messenger account to enable employees to send work-related emails. It was against company policy to use the systems
A company’s decision to use new technology to bring one of its services back in house did not remove its responsibility under TUPE to hire workers affected by the change. That was the decision of the Employment Tribunal in the case of Anglo Beef Processors UK and a meat inspector, Mr Longland. Anglo hired an
A postman has been awarded £22,000 compensation after his arrangement to work flexible hours was altered without his agreement. The Employment Tribunal heard that Adam Gregory had worked for Royal Mail for more than 20 years. Following his divorce in 2012, he requested that he should only work Monday to Friday to enable him to
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which oversees data protection in the UK, has urged businesses to prepare for major regulation changes coming into force next year. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU initiative to harmonise data protection across the European Union and it will apply in the UK from 25 May 2018.
A company was not justified in terminating a contract due to alleged defects in work carried out but that did not remove its right to recover overpayments. That was the decision of the High Court in a case involving a multi-million-pound contract between Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd and Merit Merrell Technology Ltd. Merrell had agreed
Good cash flow is the life blood of any business so it’s essential to monitor overdue invoices and act quickly to ensure payment. Failure to act promptly could mean your firm incurs damaging losses if a defaulting customer becomes insolvent and can’t afford to pay you. There are several early signs that a customer may