Employment Law

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Kerr sitting with members) today handed down judgment in the case of Walker v Wallem Shipmanagement Limited, an important case on territorial jurisdiction for discrimination claims by seafarers.

In Dewhurst and Others v Revisecatch Limited t/a Ecourier and City Sprint (UK) Ltd the ET has answered this question in the affirmative.

The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal in Royal Mail Group Ltd -v- Jhuti [2019] UKSC 55 and has held unanimously that when deciding what was the reason for dismissal in unfair dismissal, it may not be enough simply to consider what was subjectively in the mind of the decision-maker.

In Parker Steel v. Tuite and others, heard in the High Court over two days, Lucy Bone appeared for ex-employees and their new employer.

Judicial mediation seems to be something of a Marmite topic among employment practitioners. Some see it as a cost-effective option for settling what might otherwise prove to be long-running and costly litigation. Others see it as a time-consuming and often unsuccessful exercise, conducted by individuals who are employed as judges (not mediators) for a reason.

Employee competition litigation typically starts with the discovery of some perceived threat to a business: perhaps the theft or removal of confidential documentation or information; the co-ordinated departure of key employees; or evidence of breaches of post termination covenants. Decisions have to be taken, often under time pressure, about how best to respond to that threat: is a without notice

Daniel Tatton Brown Q.C. (instructed by Ed Cotton and Julien Luke of TLT LLP) successfully resisted an application for an interim order enforcing post termination non-competition covenants sought against 5 ex-employees, in the recent decision of Snowden J in Affinity Workforce Solutions Ltd v McCann [2019] EWHC 2829 (Ch).

Two recent cases have cast light on the issue of legal professional privilege in employment disputes.

S145B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Consolidation Act 1992 (“the 1992 Act”) is an under explored provision which has only just received the attention of the Court of Appeal, and has only once been considered by the EAT.

I concentrate in this blog on two cases involving religions. Religion, housing allocation and the Equality Act