Legal Issues – Sexual harassment and the Christmas party
While sexual harassment in the workplace has never been acceptable, in the latter half of 2017 it has been a veritable cause célèbre.
Much of the uproar was originally centred on Harvey Weinstein, a prominent film producer in Hollywood. An… Legal Issues – Mental Health at Work
In July 2017 we released an update on the Taylor Review, in which Matthew Taylor and his team outlined their recommendations to the government in relation to working practices in the UK.
On the heels of that review, we now… Legal Issues – Pregnancy and redundancy
Laws relating to pregnancy and maternity are complex, with a range of protections afforded to employees during pregnancy and maternity leave. In relation to dismissal, European legislation prohibits the dismissal of employees from the beginning of their pregnancy to the… Legal Issues – PHI on a TUPE transfer
Permanent Health Insurance (PHI) is generally a contractual arrangement under which an employee will be entitled to a certain level of pay, usually a percentage of their normal pay, in the event that they are unable to attend work due… Legal Issues – Suspension
The question of whether to suspend an employee suspected of wrongdoing is a common one, but it can be difficult to know if doing so is the right decision. This update reviews the topic of suspension and highlights some issues… Legal Issues – Tribunal fees
The Supreme Court (SC) has found that the tribunal fees regime, introduced in 2013, is unlawful.
The decision
Unison, the trade union that brought the initial complaint against the regime, suffered a string of defeats in the lower courts, each… Legal Issues – Redundancy and discrimination
Making employees redundant is a difficult process for the employees concerned, and can be a challenging one for employers. In many cases the main risk to the employer will be a claim, or several claims, of unfair dismissal. However, employers… Legal Issues – Failing to enhance shared parental pay to match maternity pay was discriminatory
The Shared Parental Leave (SPL) regime was introduced in April 2015 and replaced the previous additional paternity leave regime. SPL allows a mother and her partner to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of… Legal Issues – Holiday pay rears its head again
Since the issue of holiday pay came to the fore what seems many moons ago, there have been a number of decisions that have left us with the relatively solid premise that holiday pay should include an element of any… Legal Issues – Apprentices
A recent case in the Inverness Employment Tribunal (ET) has highlighted one of the main risks in recruiting apprentices in Scotland, namely that early termination of the apprenticeship can give rise to a breach of contract claim.
In Kinnear v…