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On 8 July 2015, Chancellor George Osborne announced a long awaited increase in the inheritance tax nil rate threshold which will come into effect in April 2017. Whilst this is welcome news are the changes as good as they appear? Will they benefit everyone? And is the threshold really going to be £1 million? The
Many employers are at risk of breaking pregnancy discrimination regulations despite wishing to support female staff, according to new official research. A survey commissioned jointly by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that most employers felt it was in their interests to support pregnant women and
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled that trade union and health and safety meetings can count as working time for the purposes of employment law. The case involved two employees who worked 12-hour shifts for a company called Encirc Ltd. One also served as a health and safety officer and the other was a trade
A number of estate and letting agents have been sent official letters warning them that they may be at risk of breaking competition law. The letters, from the Competition and Markets Authority, follow a recent case in which an association of estate and letting agents, and a newspaper were fined a total of £735,000 for
An employee who was sacked over a risqué photo that he posted on Facebook has won his claim of unfair dismissal. The case involved 31-year-old Faisal Auld who had worked for the company Norbert Dentressangle for 10 years. In 2009 he had posted a photo of himself holding a work colleague in a headlock in
A contractor has won the right to challenge a £658,000 award made against it by an adjudicator more than six years ago. The court heard that the contractor had been engaged by a developer to carry out an asbestos survey on a block of maisonettes. The developer later claimed that the contractor had failed to
A woman who helped set up a business as a junior partner has succeeding in ousting the senior shareholder-director who ignored their agreement and misused company money. The two parties had agreed to open a beauty salon in a shopping centre. The shareholder-director would assist with setting up the business and arranging leases, and then
The government is to carry a review of Employment Tribunal fees, which have proved highly controversial since they were introduced in 2013. The fees are designed to discourage frivolous claims and ensure that the person taking legal action bears some of the cost. Employees currently have to pay up to £1,200 to bring a claim
A developer can go ahead with plans to build student flats in a university town despite strong opposition from the local authority. The case centred on the provisions and requirements of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The site in question, which was designated as a landscape setting area, was situated in Exeter where there
A beauty queen has been awarded a £3.3m settlement in a divorce case described as “bruising and unedifying” by a leading judge in the High Court. The case involved Russian beauty queen Ekaterina Parfenova and her former husband Richard Fields, an American lawyer. The couple met in 2001 and have two children. They have lived