Category Archives: Employment and Labour Law
‘High Court rules on the effect of confidentiality clause in a settlement agreement’
“In Duchy Farm Kennels Limited v Steels [2020] EWHC 1208 (QB) Alexander Pritchard Jones appeared in an important case about the effect of breaches of confidentiality clauses contained within settlement agreements. In this case the court was concerned with what consequence if any should fall on a party who breaches the standard confidentiality clause contained […]
‘Vicarious Liability: whose liability is it anyway?’
“The Courts have been keen to emphasise that the law of vicarious liability is ‘on the move’. This is not in itself a surprise, as judges and academics have regularly remarked upon the need for vicarious liability to reflect employment and business practices as they evolve and develop. The need for the law to reflect […]
Giovanni Gaudio, ‘Adapting Labour Law to Complex Organisational Settings of the Enterprise: Why Rethinking the Concept of the Employer is Not Enough’
ABSTRACT Labour law struggles to deal with the vertical disintegration of the enterprise, a phenomenon that questions the traditional bilateral and contractual analysis of the employment relationship and the unitary concept of the employer. Multiple employer patterns have been proposed by the Italian and English scholarship to try to sidestep the current impasse. However, these […]
‘Morrisons triumphs in the Supreme Court’
“As we all adjust to the strange new reality ushered in by the arrival of Covid-19, it is reassuring to see that the wheels of the justice system continue to turn, and at the highest levels. Today the Supreme Court has handed down its judgment in one of the most watched data protection and employment […]
‘New Judgment: Barclays Bank Plc v Various Claimants [2020] UKSC 13′
“In this appeal, the Supreme Court is asked to decide whether Barclays Bank is vicariously liable for sexual assaults allegedly committed between 1968 and about 1984 by the late Dr Gordon Bates. Dr Bates was a self-employed medical practitioner with a portfolio practice. His work included conducting medical assessments and examinations of prospective Barclays employees. […]
Meyers and Hersch, ‘Employment Practices Liability Insurance and Ex Post Moral Hazard’
ABSTRACT Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) is a form of insurance that protects employers from claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. EPLI contracts as currently written often do not exclude intentional actions or payment of punitive damages, creating potentially severe moral hazard problems. We propose potential alterations that would hold employers accountable for […]
Amir Paz‐Fuchs, ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So: A Legal Realist Perspective on the Law of Agency Work’
ABSTRACT Analysis of UK employment and labour law is often characterised by a curious dissonance. The overarching narrative mandates that labour law is a countervailing force to the inequality of bargaining power, embedded with values and assumptions concerning the nature of employment relations and the role of labour law. And yet, labour law jurisprudence tends […]
Jacques Duvenhage, ‘Rajab Suliman v Rasier Pacific Pty Ltd: Employee or Independent Contractor?’
INTRODUCTION … The key legal issue in this casewas whether the applicant was an employee of Rasier Pacific (‘Uber’) or an independent contractor in light of the Services Agreement signed between Uber and Mr Rajab Suliman (‘Mr Suliman’), and if he could bring a claim for unfair dismissal under the FWA in the Fair Work […]
Nuna Zekić, ‘The Normative Framework of Labour Law’
ABSTRACT This article looks at how normative questions, ie ‘what should the law be?’, are approached in modern labour law scholarship. A distinction is made between internal and external normative frameworks for analysis, whereby internal frameworks are made up of principles, values or standards that are part of the law and the external frameworks are […]
Lilach Lurie, ‘Should Age Discrimination Be an Integral Part of Employment Discrimination Law?’
ABSTRACT This Article argues that a universal approach to age discrimination promotes justice (including intergenerational justice) and efficiency. As explained herein, legal regimes regulate age discrimination in employment in various ways. While some regimes create specific anti–age discrimination legislation, others ban most kinds of employment discrimination, including age discrimination, in a general way. These latter […]