In place of our usual annual IHL conference in Manchester city centre, we will be offering the following webinars, presented by senior lawyers and partners, remotely via Zoom, each starting at 10am for 45 minutes:   17 September 2020 Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 What are the changes and how does this affect commercial contracts?   24 September 2020 Concluding contracts remotely Avoiding the traps   1 October 2020 Changes in regulator behaviours post…

What’s New? This month we look at new ACAS guidance on handling redundancies, guidance for employers who have over (or under) claimed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and ongoing Government support for employers hit by the pandemic More… Holiday Pay The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that a profitability bonus was not part of a week’s pay for a worker with normal working hours, and therefore not part of holiday pay in respect of…

The chaos that has ensued from the regrading of A-Levels in the UK highlights far-reaching impacts of automated decision-making and why its use is restricted under the GDPR. The law Decisions which are based solely on automated processing which “produces legal effects concerning [the data subject] or similarly significantly affects [the data subject]” are prohibited under Article 22 of the GDPR. There are some limited exceptions – (i) if the decision-making is necessary for the…

On 16 July 2020, the CJEU gave its long awaited decision on international data transfers in C-311/18 – Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Ltd and Maximillian Schrems (Schrems II). The court ruled that the EU-US Privacy Shield (Privacy Shield) is invalid and can no longer be relied on to transfer personal data from the EU to the US. The court also held that standard contractual clauses (SCCs) cannot be relied on alone for a…

What’s New? This month we look at updated pandemic data protection guidance from the ICO, preventing furlough fraud, and will working from home by the new normal? More…. Recommending reasonable adjustments Where a disabled employee is substantially disadvantaged by a workplace arrangement or practice, an employer must take reasonable steps to avoid that disadvantage, but how far might an employer have to go when it comes to making reasonable adjustments? More…. Anonymous evidence In a…

The requirements for making a legally valid will are set out in a statute from 1837. One such requirement, that a will be witnessed “in the presence of” two witnesses, has caused significant practical difficulties during the Covid 19 pandemic. With many clients naturally wanting to make or update wills whilst self-isolating we have had to find inventive practical solutions that satisfy the legal requirements. Jersey has already passed a law to allow the witnessing…

Following the Third Treasury Direction published on 26 June 2020 setting out the mechanics of the changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the implementation of the ‘flexible furlough scheme’ available from 1 July 2020, there was some confusion about whether the Scheme could be used to recoup notice sums paid to employees who serve notice whilst still on furlough leave. HMRC has now confirmed in its updated guidance that the Scheme can be…