On 7 October 2019, the EU Council formally adopted the new Whistleblowing Directive that will guarantee whistleblowers EU-wide standards of protection. The Directive obliges both public and private organisations and authorities to set up secure reporting channels, so that whistleblowers can report violations of EU law as safely as possible. Member States have two years to transpose the rules into national law. The main elements of the new legislation are: Companies with more than 50…

In light of the upcoming federal election – currently scheduled for October 21, 2019 – this is a timely reminder for employers on their statutory obligations to provide employees with time off from work so that employees may exercise their constitutionally-protected right to vote on polling day. Voter eligibility under the Canada Elections Act, or in French, la Loi électorale du Canada (the “Act”), is restricted to Canadian citizens who are at least 18 years…

During a business trip to a construction site, an employee was found dead of a heart attack in a room after having had sexual intercourse with a “complete stranger” he met during the day. The employer completed the usual formalities by informing the social security authorities of the death and the circumstances. The social security authorities decided to treat the death as being work-related, which was contested by the employer. The company’s arguments before the…

As part of the UK’s Government’s “Good Work Plan” to ensure fair and decent work for all, transparency and clarity of workers’ rights and effective enforcement of those rights, proposals for a single enforcement body were published for consultation in July this year. Currently in the UK, the majority of employment rights are enforced by the individual through an employment tribunal. However, there are some exceptions where various enforcement bodies take a role to protect…

The basic working time arrangement in France is 35 hours per week, and although there are a number of alternative working time arrangements potentially available, this is still the one that applies to the majority of French employees. However, this is not a maximum working week – employees working beyond that amount are entitled to overtime. Employers must be able to prove the actual number of hours worked by their employees and must therefore ensure…

Every four seconds, someone in the world becomes a slave. It is estimated that there are currently over 40,000,000 modern slaves worldwide. The scale of the problem is such that it is impossible to ignore. This September, Norton Rose Fulbright welcomed Matt Friedman, CEO of the Mekong Club and international human trafficking expert, to Toronto and Ottawa to lead a seminar on modern slavery and its consequences for the private sector. An estimated 76% of…