The Attorney General has published guidance to help prevent social media users from committing a contempt of court. The notes, which are available on www.gov.uk and on Twitter, have previously only been issued to print and broadcast media outlets on a “not for publication” basis. They are designed to make Read more…
Businesses will welcome recent guidance from the High Court on the definition of personal data. The court’s comments will be particularly useful for businesses faced with freedom of information requests and data subject access requests, where the meaning of personal data is difficult to assess. The court’s decision establishes a Read more…
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has upheld an employment tribunal’s decision that an employer breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010, when it chose not to pay for an employee with work-related stress and depression to have private psychiatric counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy. Although a Read more…
On 23 October 2013, the Supreme Court (previously known as the House of Lords) decided that schools owe a non-delegable duty of care to their pupils when they arrange for a third party to perform functions which the school has a duty to perform. The court decided that a school Read more…
A recent Court of Appeal decision underlines how useful restrictive covenants in employment contracts can be in protecting an employer’s business. The court dismissed the appeal of a former employee and director who had been ordered to pay at least £50,000 in damages, following a breach of his post-termination restrictive Read more…
The Department for Communities and Local Government has introduced a new empty property rate relief scheme for newly built commercial property. Relief will be available for new properties completed after 1 October 2013 and before 30 September 2016 that are unoccupied for the first 18 months after completion of their Read more…
Welcome to this month’s insolvency update. I have set out below some recent cases and changes to the legislation which may be of interest relating to both corporate and personal insolvency. We would also like to invite you to our new series of Insolvency updates, the first one taking place on Read more…
This month’s update sets out the exemptions from business rates for non-domestic properties. Retail property Retail properties enjoy 100% relief for a continuous period of three months only. Changes of ownership during the three-month period do not trigger a fresh three-month exemption. The exemption applies to the property, not the Read more…
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that an employer’s failure to provide an impartial grievance appeal process (by allowing an employee to appeal to a different manager than the one who had heard the original grievance) could amount to a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. Read more…
A recent Court of Appeal decision highlights that the question of whether an employee’s refusal of suitable alternative employment is reasonable will depend on the circumstances of the particular employee. The decision also underlines the importance, when considering a particular employee’s reasons for refusal, of identifying what those reasons were Read more…