Legal Alert - February 2021

Employers now need to plan what they will do if an employee refuses a vaccination against COVID-19 and address other vaccination-related issues such as changes to their employment policies.

Limited companies with corporate officers should note that their public record at Companies House may need to be changed, using amended Companies House forms, as a result of the end of the Brexit transition period.

Owners of UK trade marks and designs are checking their ‘representative address’ for each mark and design is within the UK, Gibraltar, or the Channel Islands now that the Brexit transition period has ended and, if they are owners of multiple marks and/or designs, considering using a new, temporary IPO service to replace non-UK addresses in bulk.

Employers with an employee diagnosed with ‘long COVID’ should assess whether that employee is legally disabled and, if they are, take care not to directly or indirectly discriminate against them, and consider whether to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to alleviate any disadvantage the employee may suffer.

Employers planning to send employees to work in the EU, and independent professionals planning to work there, should ensure they can comply with each member state’s rules restricting and limiting work that can be done there by non-EU nationals – which now includes UK nationals following the end of the Brexit transition period.

The government has published proposals in a recent report, detailing its plans for helping employers support domestic abuse victims in the workplace, including where the abuser harasses or interrupts their victim while they are at work, or even shows up in person.