Update 4 May 2023: Acas has published its response to the consultation here outlining various concerns about the draft Code, including that it does not adequately set out appropriate standards of reasonableness, is overlong, and is unclear about expectations and consequences.   The Government has finally published for consultation until 18 April 2023 its proposed statutory code … Read more

A recent EAT judgment serves as a reminder that it can be fair for an employer to reopen a disciplinary process and increase the sanction to dismissal where the circumstances justify this.  Employers should act with caution as such circumstances will be rare, but could include where regulator intervention gives rise to a need to … Read more

The EAT ruling in Garrod v Riverstone Management Ltd provides welcome reassurance that an employer can initiate ‘without prejudice’ discussions offering a possible consensual termination where an employee has raised a grievance clearly indicating potential legal claims. ‘Without prejudice’ protection can only apply to communications which are a genuine attempt to settle an ‘existing dispute’.  … Read more

Employees can claim automatic unfair dismissal (from day one of employment) where they are dismissed because they left or refused to return to work in circumstances of danger which they reasonably believed to be serious and imminent, and which they could not reasonably have been expected to avert.  In its first Covid-related dismissal case, Rodgers … Read more

Before COVID-19 and the recent layoffs at Twitter Inc., the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act maintained a low profile; the act did not garner significant media attention, and cases alleging violations of the act were limited and largely routine. An explanation for this, at least in part, is that the WARN Act … Read more

It is common practice for employers to require departing employees to sign a statutory settlement agreement in order to waive statutory employment claims in return for a compensation sum.  Unfortunately, it has never been possible to guarantee an entirely clean break in this way, as illustrated by a recent EAT ruling in Bathgate v Technip … Read more

Carrying out a fair redundancy usually involves identifying an appropriate pool from which to provisionally select employees using fair selection criteria, and then consulting with the individual(s) provisionally chosen.  A recent EAT decision has made clear that an employer may need to consult at an earlier stage, prior to the choice of criteria, if the … Read more

An employer agrees to a clause in an employment contract requiring it to pay an employee two years’ salary if it terminates the employee’s employment within the first three years of the contract. Can that employer later terminate the employee and seek to avoid paying the two years’ salary by claiming that the clause is … Read more