Contracts of employment

New and updated

• Date:

  16 October 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Contracts of employment: Contract rendered illegal only where facts misrepresented

  In Enfield Technical Services Ltd v Payne; Grace v BF Components Ltd EAT/0644/06, the EAT holds that the contracts of employment were not tainted by illegality because, although the parties had wrongly characterised them as contracts of self-employment, in neither case had the parties misrepresented to the authorities the facts of their relationship.

• Date:

  14 September 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Continuity of employment: Casual worker's continuity not broken by holiday

  In Vernon v Event Management Catering Ltd EAT/0161/07 the EAT held that a casual worker who, with the exception of a single two-week break to take a holiday, worked every week for more than three years was an employee and had sufficient continuity of service to claim unfair dismissal. He could demonstrate the existence of a contract of employment in each week during the relevant period and the period of holiday did not break his continuity of employment.

• Date:

  4 September 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Variation of contract terms: The variation of a car allowance scheme should have been accompanied by transitional protection

  In Wetherill & Ors v Birmingham City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 599 the Court of Appeal held that a local authority was entitled to vary a car allowance scheme unilaterally, but was in breach of contract by failing to provide adequate transitional protection for affected employees.

• Date:

  8 August 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Contracts of employment: Notice rights on expiry of probationary period

  In Przybylska v Modus Telecom Ltd EAT/0566/06 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that a tribunal was wrong to imply into a contract a term that the employer could carry out a review of the probationary period within a reasonable time of the expiry of the probationary period.

• Date:

  19 July 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Morrish v NTL Group Ltd

  In Morrish v NTL Group Ltd [2007] CSIH 56 CS, the Court of Session has held that a pay in lieu of notice clause could not be implied into a contract of employment.

• Date:

  11 July 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  TUPE: Share transfers

  In Millam v The Print Factory (London) 1991 Ltd [2007] IRLR 526 CA, the Court of Appeal held that where the operation - as opposed to the ownership of a business - transferred to a new owner, TUPE applied notwithstanding that the business was acquired on a sale of shares.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case of the week: Post-termination restraint clauses

  This week's case of the week, provided by Allen & Overy, covers post-termination restraint clauses.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case of the week: Banking on the bonus doesn't pay

  This week's case of the week, provided by Addleshaw Goddard, covers discretionary bonuses.

• Date:

  3 April 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Contracts of employment: Enhanced redundancy payment provision in staff handbook had contractual effect

  In Keeley v Fosroc International Ltd [2006] IRLR 961, the Court of Appeal held that a provision for enhanced redundancy payments set out in a staff handbook that was incorporated into the employment contract constituted an express term of the individual contract of employment, thus conferring a contractual right to the payment.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case of the week: Restrictive covenants

  This week's case of the week, provided by Lovells, covers restrictive covenants.