Employers should take particular care when carrying out health and safety risk assessments for nursing or pregnant employees, as a defective assessment is prima facie evidence of discrimination, a recent ruling makes clear.
Employers can give employees their statutory 24-hour break in each seven-day period at any point within each such period, following an EU ruling. For example, they can give one at the beginning of a seven-day period and another at the end of the next seven-day period – with the effect that there are 12 days between two 24-hour rest periods.
Parties dealing with each other on more than one related project or transaction should ensure their agreements are clear as to which exclusions or restrictions of liabilities apply to which projects or transactions, and that the relevant clauses do not breach consumer protection laws, a recent case has highlighted.
Businesses owning a database will welcome a legal ruling that will help them decide if they enjoy a database right, so that the database is therefore protected from being reused by someone else.
Employers who know or believe an employee has the right to work in the UK, but still carry out a right to work check, should take advice before disciplining or dismissing the employer if they do not produce documents showing a right to work.
Employers should identify who will need a Data Privacy Notices (DPN), determine what should be in them, and revisit their processes and procedures and staff training, to ensure the right individuals receive a DPN at the right time, in readiness for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Businesses with a turnover of at least £36m who are operating in the UK, or supplying UK customers, will welcome updated guidance to help them comply with anti-slavery laws.
Employers should ensure they have clearly identified individuals who are 'workers' among their workforce, and those who are not. This is particularly so where individuals given a specific job are entitled to get someone else to do that job in their place, following a ruling that Deliveroo riders are not workers for the purposes of trade union law.
Businesses generating and passing work to third party individuals, taking a commission each time, but who treat those individuals as self-employed - should now consider whether they may be 'workers' under UK law, and entitled to basic employment law rights, following a Court of Appeal ruling.
A litigant should consider applying for a freezing injunction in relation to any assets to be transferred outside the UK by the other side, other than in the ordinary course of living or business, a recent case highlights.