In Allen v Dodd & Co, the Court of Appeal has ruled that an employer is not liable for inducing a breach of contract where it receives (and believes) legal advice that it is “more probable than not” that a restrictive covenant is unenforceable. This is so even if the employer believes that there is … Read more

Employers wishing to ensure employees keep salary information confidential should ensure that it is included expressly within a contractual confidentiality obligation.  Disciplinary policies should also make clear that external (or internal, if appropriate) disclosure without the employer’s permission is misconduct. The EAT in Jagex Ltd v McCambridge confirmed that a duty to keep pay information … Read more

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in Herbai v Hungary that the European Convention Article 10 right of freedom of expression can protect opinions which are on matters of interest only to specific professions.  It is not limited to comments that demonstrably contribute to debate on matters of public interest. The Court held … Read more

This month our update looks at: changes to the minimum wage requirements in India which starts to simplify the complex wage provisions, and guarantees minimum wage payments to all employees; in Singapore the case of Pradeepto Kumar Biswas v East India Capital Management Pte Ltd  confirms the position that employment relationships can be implied based … Read more

This morning the Supreme Court has handed down judgment in Tillman v Egon Zehnder, ruling that the ‘blue pencil’ test permitting severance of words that extend the scope of a covenant too far can be applied to parts of a single covenant, even where it is not in effect a combination of several distinct covenants. … Read more

On 18 April 2019, the Singapore High Court applied the Court of Appeal test in Man Financial and found that a non-compete clause was unreasonably wide due to its commercial, geographical and durational scope, and was therefore void as an illegal restraint of trade. The judgment is explained below. Read more

Further to its response to the Women and Equalities Select Committee report last December (see here), the Government is consulting until 29 April 2019 on proposals to regulate confidentiality clauses (commonly referred to as “NDAs” or non-disclosure agreements) in employment contracts and settlement agreements.  The Government has rejected calls to ban the use of such … Read more

The appropriate use of confidentiality agreements in the employment context has come under a lot of scrutiny given the #MeToo campaign; a recent case illustrates how the courts may approach the issue of enforceability. In Linklaters LLP v Mellish, Linklaters was granted a temporary injunction to restrain the defendant, its ex-global director of business development, from … Read more