Blog
Civil Fraud Case Update: Q1 2026
Mary Young
30 October 2014
Legal update: Employee’s prior repudiatory breach of contract did not prevent him from being entitled to bring a constructive dismissal claim
In Atkinson v Community Gateway Association the EAT held that an employee was not barred by his own prior repudiatory breach of his employment contract from bringing a constructive unfair dismissal claim. However, the EAT further held that if the employer could show that it would have fairly dismissed the employee, if it had known about the prior breach, then compensation could be reduced by up to 100%.
28 October 2014
Employment Tribunal user group meeting in Watford - Another step forward?
Sometimes you have just got to be there. In this case at a new style Employment Tribunal Users’ meeting.
These meetings very nearly fell by the wayside. ELA became involved in order to try and generate more enthusiasm for them. I should declare an interest in that respect, as I was Chair of ELA at the time. Certainly, we do seem to have played our part in what to my mind, has been a quite remarkable turnaround with respect to these meetings.
22 October 2014
Drug testing in the workplace - the difficulties for employers
Recent reports suggest that since 2010, the number of UK employers conducting workplace drug testing has increased by up to 470%. Drug testing has traditionally been limited to safety critical roles. However, it is becoming more common across a wider variety of sectors (such as retail, professional and financial services). According to the latest Global Drug Survey, within the last 12 months 20% of British respondents have gone to work whilst coming down from drugs. It is hardly surprising then, that businesses are upping the ante.
This blog first appeared as an article in HR Magazine in October 2014.
16 October 2014
Freeze your eggs, not your career progression
This is the subliminal message being given to employees of Facebook and Apple in the US, following the announcement this week that these companies are giving female staff the opportunity to delay starting a family by paying for them to freeze their eggs.
30 September 2014
Legal update - TUPE: does a location change mean employees can bring constructive and automatically unfair dismissal claims?
There has been real anxiety amongst employers (particularly outsourced service providers) in recent years regarding the ability of employees in a TUPE transfer to bring constructive and automatically unfair dismissal claims based on a change in their working location. However, the recent case of Cetinsoy & ors v London United Busways Limited illustrates that even under the law previously in force prior to the amendments to TUPE brought into force from 31 January 2014, it did not necessarily follow that a location change in the context of a TUPE transfer meant that the affected employees could establish constructive and automatically unfair dismissal.
