The last few months since our August round-up have seen considerable progress on a number of employment law reform initiatives, largely through enactment of Private Members’ Bills supported by the Government in place of any Employment Bill (which again was absent from the recent King’s Speech).  Employers will need to reflect many of these in … Read more

The Government has published draft regulations amending the Equality Act 2010 in order to reproduce in domestic law rights and protections developed by EU case law (which might otherwise be departed from by domestic courts after 1 January 2024, pursuant to the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023).  The Equality Act will be … Read more

The Government has this week published its response to recent consultations (see here) on proposed changes to the Working Time Regulations (WTR) and TUPE.  It aims to take advantage of Brexit to remove some administrative complexity for employers while also codifying certain worker rights established through ECJ caselaw (which could otherwise be reversed following 1 … Read more

This month’s update covers the following: We look at a recent Singapore case where an employer was found liable for wrongful termination, but was entitled to recover relocation benefits paid to an employee who failed to relocate. Click here to read a summary of the case. Over in Mainland China, the local authorities in Shanghai … Read more

New challenges, new norms  Our last Future of Work report was written during a period of upheaval, with the Covid-19 pandemic necessitating new ways of working and social movements – including Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, #StopAsianHate and growing climate activism – changing expectations of internal and external stakeholders. Now the pandemic has abated but new … Read more

HR teams face a busy year updating policies, procedures and staff training to reflect legislative changes expected to come into force next year.  Several Private Members’ Bills have been enacted in recent months (including on carer’s leave, flexible work requests, predictable work requests and extended redundancy protection for pregnancy/family leave returners);  yesterday it was the … Read more

In the next step in its drive to boost diversity and inclusion (D&I) in regulated firms, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published Consultation Paper 23/20 at the end of September setting out its proposals on new regulatory framework in respect of D&I in the financial sector (FCA CP). At the same time, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published its … Read more

A recent tribunal decision has held that an employee’s beliefs about the best way to eliminate racism (that critical race theory, described by him as the ‘woke’ approach to racism, is misconceived and divisive, and that the cause of racial equality is best advanced not through separatism and segregation but by valuing people based on … Read more