A recent High Court case provides useful clarity that companies operating employee incentive plans should be able to link the exercise of a discretion to treat a departing participant as a "good leaver" to a condition that the participant has not breached their employment contract, or even that the participant complies with post-termination restrictive covenants. … Read more

The law in Hong Kong has recently changed to allow male government employees under a continuous employment contract for at least 40 weeks to take paternity leave of 5 working days on full pay upon the birth of each child.  Now, these new statutory paternity provisions are likely to be extended to private employers. The … Read more

There have been recent changes to the Fair Work legislation in the following areas:  transfer of business bargaining time limitations for unfair dismissal and general protections claims costs superannuation default funds in modern awards, and the operation of the Fair Work Commission (previously Fair Work Australia). Read more

Stakeholders in the retail, livestock, bulk grain, interstate long distance and intrastate long distance sectors can expect orders impacting the terms and conditions of road transport drivers in these sectors through the course of 2013. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) is a new federal tribunal with powers relating to road transport drivers, their employers … Read more

The recent dismissal of James Ashby’s sexual harassment case against former Speaker Peter Slipper concludes yet another example of ‘trial by media’. On 12 December 2012 the Federal Court handed down its decision dismissing Mr Ashby’s claim in full on the basis that it was an abuse of process, ordering Mr Ashby to pay Mr … Read more

UK law may need to be amended to protect employees from dismissal because of their political beliefs or affiliation. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that a BNP bus driver's right to freedom of assembly was infringed by the lack of remedy for his dismissal due to being elected as a local councillor for … Read more

Employers can rely on a current prior warning to support a dismissal for misconduct which would not justify dismissal on its own, even where the two instances of misconduct are not similar.  This is particularly so where the terms of the warning make it clear that any further misconduct of any nature could result in further … Read more

Employers should not assume that they have the right to restrict an employee's freedom to express views on social media where these concern personal beliefs and do not have a work-related context (such as being about the employer or work colleagues). An employee's explanation of his views on gay marriage on his Facebook page was not work-related. … Read more