Newsletters

Excitement is building in anticipation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup which is due to kick off on Friday 11th June 2010. As a result of this, many employees will be looking to book annual leave in order to make sure they do not miss all of the action.

UK equality legislation has developed over the past forty years and is currently governed by nine major pieces of legislation. Employers (and advisers) have long complained of the difficulties they experience when attempting to interpret and apply the legislation.

Over the last 10 days, the vast majority of businesses within the UK have had to deal with staffing problems arising from employees who have been stranded abroad as a result of flights being cancelled due to the ash cloud hanging over most of the UK.

This month sees the introduction of a series of new employment laws, a number of which we have previewed in earlier employment e-bulletins. Referred to below is an overview of each of the new legislative changes which are likely to affect you as an employer.

In Bateman and others –v- Asda Stores Limited the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has confirmed that employers may have the right to unilaterally vary employees’ contracts of employment (including hours of work and rates of pay) without obtaining the express consent of employees.

New Claims Procedure.

On Friday 29th January the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed that it will be replacing the current system of GP sick notes with “fit notes” with effect from Tuesday 6th April 2010.

Workers currently have the statutory right to be accompanied at disciplinary and grievance hearings by a trade union representative or a fellow worker. Despite workers often requesting that this right be extended to cover other categories of person such as relatives or legal representatives there is no obligation on an employer to do so.

Last week, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in the case of Lyons –v- Mitie Security Limited confirmed that workers can lose accrued untaken annual leave entitlement at the end of a leave year where they fail to follow an employer’s rules relating to how much notice they are required to provide when submitting a request to take annual leave.

It is now a little over a year since the new directors’ duties relating to confl icts of interests were introduced by the Companies Act 2006 (“the Act”) and our experiences have shown that a signifi cant number of companies have failed to put in place systems to adequately deal with this issue, which has led to potential exposure to the directors concerned.

The current economic difficulties has seen an increasing use of the “pre-pack” transaction, whereby an agreement for the sale of the business and assets of an insolvent company is negotiated prior to the commencement of formal insolvency proceedings, and completed almost immediately afterwards.

The EU Equal Treatment Directive (“the ETD”) prohibits discrimination on a number of grounds including a person’s age. It applies to all employees and governs working conditions including pay and dismissals.

In this third newsletter on the upcoming changes in the Companies Act 2006 (“2006 Act”) we focus on the changes to the role of the company secretary, and the new forms and procedures which secretaries will need to comply with.

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (“the Regulations”) were introduced in October 2006 and make it unlawful to discriminate, whether directly or indirectly, against a person on the ground of his or her age.

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (“the Act”) came into force on 6th April 2008 and was intended to make it easier to prosecute large organisations for gross health and safety management failings.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA”) states that an Employment Tribunal is only able to hear a complaint of unfair dismissal where it has been brought within 3 months from the effective date of termination (“EDT”).

The number of swine flu cases in the UK is doubling every seven days and as such it is important employers are ready to respond to the effects a serious outbreak may have on their staff and their business.

In this second newsletter on the changes in the Companies Act 2006 (“2006 Act”) we address the issue of the public availability of directors’ residential addresses. The issue of directors’ privacy was highlighted in December 2008 by the Huntingdon Life Sciences experiences.

The new Companies Act 2006 (2006 Act) is intended to make the incorporation and administration of companies much easier. However, the sheer volume of the legislation (the largest Act ever passed by Parliament) may mean that this objective cannot be achieved.

For some time there has been uncertainty surrounding the issue of whether controlling shareholders and directors can be employees. Guidance previously given by the Court of Appeal in 1999 indicated that controlling shareholders could not be employees because, as controlling shareholders, they could determine the future of the company and therefore were not under sufficient control of the company.

Currently, employees have the right to be accompanied to internal disciplinary meetings by either a colleague or trade union representative. A recent decision of the High Court in R (on app'n of "G") v Governors of "X" School, however, has held that in certain circumstances an employee has the right to be accompanied to such meetings by a qualified lawyer.

Following a review of employment dispute resolution practices, the Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (“BERR”) has concluded that the Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures (“the Old Procedures”) which were introduced in October 2004 havenot succeeded in reducing the number of Employment Tribunal disputes.

Regulation 5(1) of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 (“the Regulations”) provides that harassment, on the grounds of sexual orientation, occurs where a person engages in unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that person.

The EC Working Time Directive (“the Directive”) lays down minimum safety and health requirements for the organisation of working time. Article 7 provides that every worker is entitled to at least four weeks paid annual leave.

Team moves are becoming increasingly common in the financial services sector and arise where a senior executive leaves a company to either join a rival or set up their own rival business and then seek to take a large number of employees and/or clients with them to give them a head start in the business. The same principal however can arise in a wide range of businesses.