On its return from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the employment tribunal in this important case has read an extra subsection into the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833) to comply with the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC).
David Malamatenios is a partner, and Colin Makin and Krishna Santra are senior associates at Colman Coyle Solicitors. They round up the latest rulings.
The Court of Appeal has held that it was reasonable for the employer not to carry out a detailed investigation into an employee's explanations for unusually high travel expense claims as the employer had obtained sufficient evidence to decide that the employee's explanations were implausible.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld an employment tribunal decision that a requirement for older employees to accept less generous terms and conditions of employment, as a condition of their employment continuing, could be justified.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that where an internal appeal is successful, the contract of employment is automatically revived with retrospective effect.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal considered the misuse of Twitter by an employee for the first time. The decision highlights the importance of having a robust policy in place relating to the use of social media at work.
In Bear Scotland Ltd and others v Fulton and others; Hertel (UK) Ltd v Woods and others; Amec Group Ltd v Law and others [2015] IRLR 15 EAT, the EAT held that payment in respect of overtime that the worker is obliged to work when it is available, but that is not guaranteed by the employer, constitutes part of the worker's normal remuneration and as such should be included in the computation of the worker's holiday pay.
In Edem v Information Commissioner and another [2014] EWCA Civ 92 CA, the Court of Appeal held that an individual's name will constitute "personal data" for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 so as to be exempt from disclosure pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request, unless it is so common that, without further information, such as its use in a work context, a person would remain unidentifiable despite its disclosure.
The Court of Appeal has given guidance on employment status for the purposes of discrimination claims where a person provides services through his or her own business.