A monthly checklist from Atom Content Marketing highlighting new and pending laws, regulations, codes of practice and rulings that could have an impact on your business.
Employers should ensure voluntary overtime is taken into account when calculating holiday pay if that overtime is, over a sufficient period, broadly regular and/or recurring and predictable enough to qualify as normal remuneration, following a Court of Appeal ruling.
Employers may be able to rely on an occupational health or other medical report saying an employee is not disabled, provided the report deals with the question in detail, and there is no evidence to the contrary, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has ruled.
Trade mark owners should ensure they are making ‘genuine use’ of their trade marks under the relevant tests, and can produce sufficient evidence to convince the trade mark registry they are doing so - or risk their trade marks being revoked, a shock ruling makes clear.
Employers offering enhanced contractual maternity pay to mothers are not guilty of direct or indirect discrimination or of breaching equal pay rules, if they fail to give enhanced pay to fathers taking shared parental leave as well, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Employers calculating redundancy, holiday or other pay-related compensation should take advice before reducing it if the employee has recently been on parental leave (or other leave during which they receive no or reduced pay), according to an EU ruling.
Landlords with little prospect of finding a tenant for a property may find this will be ignored for rating purposes; and the rateable value for the property could be set by reference to rents being paid for other, similar properties in the area.
A weaker party to an agreement who wants to avoid it on grounds of economic duress by the other side, should consider whether the stronger party’s actions were taken in good faith, because if they were, it cannot avoid the agreement on grounds of economic duress.
Disclaimer: These publications from Atom Content Marketing are for general guidance only, for businesses in the United Kingdom governed by the laws of England. Atom Content Marketing, expert contributors and ICAEW (as distributor) disclaim all liability for any errors or omissions.