Blog
Civil Fraud Case Update: Q1 2026
Mary Young
14 June 2016
Thinking of taking your employer’s confidential information to a competitor? Think twice.
We live in a digital age in which the confidential information of employers is easily disclosed or misused. However, two contrasting recent cases provide cautionary tales for employees with plans to join a competitor who are tempted to take their employer’s confidential information with them and misuse it in their new post. Likewise, businesses would be well advised to ensure they do not encourage or turn a blind eye to the misuse by newly hired staff of the confidential information of their competitors.
10 June 2016
Beware of Contractual Handbooks
Department for Transport v Sparks & Ors [2016] EWCA Civ 360
A Court of Appeal decision relating to the High Court’s judgment that absence management provisions set out in a staff handbook had been incorporated into employees’ contracts.
9 June 2016
No Imputed Intention for Direct Disability Discrimination
Gallop v Newport City Council UKEAT/0118/15
In this case, the EAT dealt with the issue of the decision maker’s knowledge in a direct disability discrimination claim.
The brief facts of the case were that Mr Gallop was employed by Newport City Council. He was referred to the council’s Occupational Health department due to stress. He was signed off on a few occasions with stress related illness, however occupational health did not consider that he had a depressive illness, or that he was covered by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. After a return to work Mr Gallop was suspended following an allegation of misconduct and later dismissed.
27 May 2016
Efficiency in the public sector: a philosophical belief?
Mr Harron worked for Dorset Police and made a series of complaints to his employer about what he saw to be poor use of public money. He claimed a detriment arising from his profound ‘belief in the proper and efficient use of public money in the public sector’ as discrimination on the basis of ‘philosophical belief’.
23 May 2016
Money can’t buy you restraint: A “how not to” guide to restrictive covenants
Bartholomews Agri Food Limited v Michael Andrew Thornton
Remember the parable of The House on the Rock? In the words of Matthew 7:24-27: “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”