If you want to dismiss employees when they reach a certain age, e.g. 65, you must be able to justify this on grounds of social/business policy. However, this approach carries a risk of claims for age discrimination Assuming you do not want to run the risks associated with retirement dismissals, you should ensure that your performance management processes are robust and that any underperformance is addressed promptly and consistently, irrespective of employees’ ages. Assumptions that older employees are likely to perform less ably due to their age should be avoided, but where a formal process indicates that an older worker’s…
I am the owner of a business with a number of employees who have access to my servers through their own devices. I am concerned that there may be intellectual property theft. How do I ensure that my employees understand that all information, including sales-led business leads are owned by the business? I am worried that any employees who leave or are made redundant may use company information to start their own business or help them get a new job. Is there any way I can prevent this from happening? Employees should have a dated employment contract which they read…
Introduction Statutory demands are a popular mechanism for creditors to recover debts due by limited companies. If correctly used they may prove to be quicker and cheaper than taking court action. A statutory demand is a formal written notice through a debt exceeding £750, demanding payment of the debt due by a limited company to a creditor. Service of the demand indicates the creditor intends to present a petition to wind up the company if the debt remains unpaid. There is a presumption, by law, that if the debtor company does not satisfy the demand within three weeks after its…
Unpaid service charges/how to save your home The questions are: (i) is the service charge due? (ii) can the landlord rely on that unpaid charge to claim possession? Does the claimed service charge accord with the lease? Carefully study the lease. There have been many, many cases and it is likely that the wording has been argued over before the decision reached on identical wording. Has there been consultation? Are the charges reasonable? Have they been demanded soon enough? The lease is not the end of the story. Long lessees have valuable rights the Landlord and Tenant Act (LTA) 1985.…
I run of a mineral extraction company. I entered into a joint venture with another company in China as a minority partner. There is no clause in the contract that stipulated where arbitration should take place. We are now in dispute and because the contract was drafted in China we are worried that the arbitration will have to be held there. Do we have any options about resolving the dispute elsewhere? The choice of country where the arbitration takes place, called the seat, has important implications. It is not just simply the venue for the hearing. Arbitrators apply the procedural…
A member of staff has been making racist comments on Twitter. It is her personal account but it identifies her as working here. Can we discipline her? Establish whether this breaches any of your existing policies. Although the employee was using his personal account her behaviour may still be caught by your discrimination and harassment policy (if it is sufficiently widely drawn) or by the general law against conduct bringing the employer into disrepute. An employment tribunal is still likely to consider disciplinary action justified because of the connection with work and the serious nature of the conduct. There is…
A senior member of staff has been using recording devices in the office to monitor workplace conversations. What are my obligations to the employees concerned and do I have a legal right to dismiss the individual for infringing the privacy of colleagues? The employee’s recording contravenes the Data Protection Act 1998. Their use amounts to misconduct. You may be able fairly to dismiss the employee for this misconduct, if dismissal for this act alone is reasonable. Factors that may affect whether this is reasonable include the importance you the place on complying with data protection laws (likely to be of…
Credit rating agencies play an important role in the field of consumer credit. A whole section of reported court cases concerned the potential impact on successful claimants of their records remaining unchanged in relation to a debt which was outstanding but unenforceable. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 credit rating agencies are subject to the principal that all data is accurate and kept up to date. If that principle is breached compensation may be payable if the data holder – in this case the credit rating agency – cannot prove it took reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the…
Credit rating agencies play an important role in the field of consumer credit. A whole section of reported court cases concerned the potential impact on successful claimants of their records remaining unchanged in relation to a debt which was outstanding but unenforceable. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 credit rating agencies are subject to the principal that all data is accurate and kept up to date. If that principle is breached compensation may be payable if the data holder – in this case the credit rating agency – cannot prove it took reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the…
The courts have been wary of allowing litigants in property disputes to import the principles set out in Jones in respect of cohabitation but this approach is not inflexible. The Supreme Court’s decision in Jones v Kernott received approval from many who hoped it would enable fairness and justice to be done in domestic property situations. It created a perception that the court’s discretion in property disputes had been widened by the introduction of a concept of fairness, borrowed from the family court’s approach towards financial remedies on divorce. The justices in Jones set out a number of principles for determining…
