The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 came into force in 2008 and introduced a new offence of corporate manslaughter where the gross negligence of a company’s senior management results in death. On 15 February 2011, Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings was found guilty of corporate manslaughter, this being the first conviction under the Act. This […]
The government has announced that it will not be proceeding with plans to extend the right for employees to ask for time off for training to all employers in April 2011 as planned. The right to ask for time off for training applies to employees with 26 weeks continuous service. This right is similar to […]
The Freedoms Bill has had its first reading in parliament. The Bill has a wide range covering issues relating to fingerprinting, DNA, CCTV and even wheel clamping. However, it also proposes a review of the current criminal records and vetting and barring regime, in order to “scale it back to common sense levels”. The changes […]
In a recent judgement of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (‘EAT’) it was decided that a claimant who accepted a settlement offer on the morning before the case was due to start, but had rejected the exact same settlement offer some months earlier, had acted unreasonably. The EAT was therefore justified in awarding costs to the […]
An employer has paid £5,000 in compensation and £8,000 court costs to a former employee after he paraded the employee through the streets with a sign around his neck declaring he was a thief. The employee had admitted he had stolen money from his employer by writing a company cheque to himself for £845 and […]
A former employee who brought defamation proceedings against the BBC for allegedly making defamatory comments during a capability review has seen his case dismissed by the High Court. So, what is defamation? Defamation concerns the publication of materials which result in a loss of trade or causes a reasonable person to think less of an […]
A recent case identified a Hong Kong company as liable for acts of discrimination and unfair dismissal of an employee that they had seconded to a third party in London for an indefinite period. The usual legal test applied to such situations involves consideration of two factors: whether the employer carried on business in England […]
On the 4th January 2011 the rate at which VAT is charged increased from 17.5% to 20%. Effectively for recruiters, this means that the cost of your service has also increased by 2.5%. This is something that may not be welcomed by hirers, particularly those who operate in non VAT charging sectors such as the […]
An employee was unsuccessful in his claim of age discrimination when he sought to argue that his employer had rushed through the redundancy process to be able to dismiss him before he reached his 50th birthday. The employee would have gained extra benefits upon redundancy once he reached 50 years of age. It was decided […]
The coalition government has confirmed that the default retirement age of 65 is to be abolished on 1 October 2011. This means that the last date an employer can give notice of intention to retire an employee who is approaching or has reached their 65th birthday is 30 March 2011. It will also be possible […]
