A part-time private hire driver challenged a flat weekly fee his company charged for access to its booking and dispatch system. Because the fee did not vary with hours worked, part-timers paid far more per hour than full-timers for the same service. He claimed less favourable treatment because of his part-time status. The Employment Tribunal rejected the claim, finding the fee was a revenue measure and that part-time status had to be the sole reason for the treatment, with the resulting appeal leading all the way to the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court unanimously held that a part-time worker (PTW) bringing a less favourable treatment claim under the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (PTWRs) 2000 does not need to prove that part-time status was the sole reason for the treatment. It is sufficient that it was an effective cause or significantly influenced the outcome. Employers can no longer defend a policy simply by pointing to a second commercial motive, such as administrative convenience or revenue generation. Neutral-looking practices like flat fees, fixed charges and benefit rules that fall harder on part-timers are now much easier to challenge, in your own organisation and among your clients.

The successful claim rested on Regulations 5(1) and 5(2) of the PTWRs. These were made under Section 19 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 to implement Directive 97/81/EC. Under the law, PTWs must not be treated less favourably than comparable full-timers unless the treatment is objectively justified. The Court stressed that the Regulations deliberately omit the words "solely because", so the ordinary "effective cause" approach from discrimination law applies.

To reduce your risk, review pay structures, fees and benefits for anything that costs part-timers proportionately more or gives them less, and pro-rate salary, bonuses, pensions, leave and expenses wherever possible. Where a policy does have a disproportionate effect, record the legitimate aim behind it and why it is necessary and proportionate, bearing in mind that revenue or convenience alone is unlikely to be enough. Remember that the Regulations cover workers as well as employees, so include contractors in your review. Finally, make sure HR, payroll and finance teams understand the new test, and treat any part-time grievance about pay or benefits as a potential claim by taking specialist advice early.

Several employment law changes are approaching that businesses need to understand. The first arrives on 1 October 2026, when the normal period in which an employee can bring a claim to an Employment Tribunal increases from three months to six months.

The change has a practical consequence for employers. Employment records relating to disputes, disciplinary action and other workplace issues may remain important for longer, making accurate record keeping increasingly valuable.

Further changes follow on 30 October when employers will be required to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of employees. They will also have an obligation not to permit employees to be harassed by third parties.

The changes form part of the continuing implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025, with further measures following during 2027.

For businesses, preparation should involve more than updating the staff handbook.

Consider whether managers understand how to recognise and respond to inappropriate behaviour. Review how employees can raise concerns and whether complaints are recorded and investigated properly. Businesses dealing directly with customers, contractors and other third parties should also consider situations in which their employees could experience inappropriate behaviour from people outside the organisation. Training may be appropriate, particularly for managers and supervisors.

Employment law is continuing to change, and businesses do not need to become experts in every new provision. They do, however, need procedures that reflect their responsibilities. A useful starting point is therefore to review employment policies, management training and record-keeping arrangements before the October changes take effect.

Seeking to claw back training costs from wages is common practice. However, a recent ruling has set clearer boundaries as to how this can become an unenforceable restraint of trade. An appellant joined an IT services provider as a trainee quality assurance engineer and entered into an employment contract alongside a separate "contract of training investment" which levied a "training cost debt" of over £8,000 for mentoring and internal support.

Under the scheme, this debt would gradually be ‘paid off’ if the claimant remained with the company, although if his employment were to be terminated for any reason other than redundancy, the remaining balance was to become immediately recoverable.

The appellant resigned after 8 months to accept a better-paid role elsewhere, prompting the employer to initiate legal proceedings to recover the full sum. After initial setbacks, the appellant took his case to the Court of Appeal, arguing that such a clawback scheme constituted an unlawful restraint of trade.

The Court unanimously allowed the appeal, setting aside the previous judgements and firmly rejecting the employer's argument that an unconditional repayment obligation falls beyond the restraint of trade doctrine, as it was framed as a debt. Such financial penalties and liabilities effectively create an indirect restraint by acting as a powerful deterrent against changing employers.

The contractual clauses failed as the pernicious repayment obligation applied, regardless of the reason for departure, and were written irrespective of whether the employee moved to a higher-paid job in the same sector or left the workforce entirely. This decision has significant implications for employment law and HR practice, particularly for how organisations structure training arrangements, financial incentives, and employee retention mechanisms.

Reframing clawbacks as commercial debts rather than as traditional post-termination restrictive covenants no longer confers immunity from the doctrine of restraint of trade, and employers can no longer rely on such universal and indiscriminate repayment clauses. To be enforceable, a clawback provision must be carefully tailored and may not impose heavy financial liabilities on junior staff who are paid at or near minimum wage. From this point, employers must ensure that any training cost recovery schemes are proportionate, reflect any value already returned to the business, and do not unduly restrict an individual's freedom to change employment.

Where an employee is promised a discretionary bonus as an incentive, an employer may be held liable for the full figure if the preconditions have been met and the chain of authorisation is fully satisfied. Indeed, a recent ruling by a tribunal has made it clear that employers cannot unilaterally alter the preconditions or quantum of a bonus once the agreed terms have been met and approved.

The contention arose after a global cloud hosting platform introduced a bonus incentive scheme, which, according to the presentation slide deck, offered sales staff a discretionary bonus of "up to 1%" of revenues derived from invoicing any new client over the first twelve months of the contract, subject to the approval of the Sector Lead Head (SLH). Soon after this offer was made, the claimant secured a major contract with a prominent retailer, whereupon the line manager formally emailed the SLH to recommend the full 1% commission. The SLH duly authorised the bonus in a recorded ‘memo’. However, the senior management baulked at the prospective payout of £516,082 and sought to retroactively apply a £150,000 bonus cap. While the initial claim for the unlawful deduction of wages was dismissed on the ground that no legal entitlement had crystallised, this was overturned on appeal, as the objective terms of the bonus scheme had been clearly outlined, met, and approved by the designated authority.

Crucially, once the SLH had authorised the bonus, the claimant's entitlement to 1% of the first year’s revenues had legally materialised, and the employer had no legal right to cap the bonus or insist upon additional management sign-offs. Thus, discretionary bonus schemes do not automatically grant employers unrestricted authority to alter payment terms at their whim, as, once an employer has established a discretionary bonus framework, communicates its specific terms to an employee, and subsequently exercises its discretion to approve the award, a binding legal obligation has been formed. As a consequence of this landmark ruling, employers should review all bonus incentive schemes to ensure that they do not inadvertently create any unanticipated obligations.

Protecting hard-won local customer networks is a constant and necessary battle for commercial suppliers. However, a recent High Court judgement has exposed the risks inherent in employing standard ‘boilerplate’ contracts to restrict departing sales staff. The dispute in focus was triggered when a national building supplies merchant sought final injunctions against its former area sales manager. Under the terms of his contract, the defendant was defined as a peripatetic area sales manager responsible for high-value client accounts across the local regions. The contract was subject to a standard one-week notice period during a probationary window, yet also contained extensive post-termination restrictions, including a 6-month, geographically defined non-compete covenant, alongside a 12-month confidentiality clause.

During the course of his employment, the defendant had regular access to the merchant's digital management systems, which record customer transaction histories, pipeline projects, and a variable pricing hierarchy. Some months later, the defendant resigned from the merchant under the presumed obligation of three months' notice with a view to joining a direct competitor as an external sales manager to help launch their new regional branch.

The defendant’s previous company learned that regional clients on the departing manager’s sales ledger were being actively engaged. Specifically, the merchant referenced a professional networking exchange between the defendant and a buyer for a prominent local construction company, during which the defendant directed the buyer's representative to reroute quotes through his new employer. Fearing an immediate loss of its localised trade connections, the merchant issued a formal legal claim and successfully secured an interim injunction to enforce both the 6-month non-compete covenant and a temporary confidentiality restriction.

The High Court, however, dismissed the employer’s claims, declaring the non-compete covenant void and unenforceable, while further rejecting the application for a final confidentiality injunction. The Judge’s assessment focused on fatal drafting flaws in the agreement, specifically the dismantling of a contractual "carve-out" intended to allow the employee to work in non-competing areas. Moreover, the former employer attempted a belated "blue-pencil" deletion to alter this exception. However, the High Court ruled that an employer cannot retroactively rewrite a relaxation clause to limit a former employee's freedom.

The High Court also applied the "Quilter point," confirming that, as the manager could have been dismissed at a week's notice during his initial probation period, applying an immediate 6-month blanket ban from ‘day one’ was fundamentally disproportionate. Finally, the Court ruled that the pricing schedules listed on the company’s internal software were merely artificial screen prices. Given that genuine commodity prices fluctuate rapidly due to global market forces, regional builders routinely and openly share competitor quotes to drive down costs. Thus, the departing manager possessed no memorable or stable trade secrets which could have been unlawfully exploited.

If boilerplate trade protections are structurally inconsistent, geographically bloated, or syntactically flawed, they will be struck down entirely under employment law, leaving client databases open to exploitation. A non-competition restriction is only as strong as the internal consistency of your wider framework, and seeking to retroactively expand a post-termination boundary to include marginal outlier accounts will likely backfire.

If an organisation reserves the right to terminate an introductory employee at a week's notice, any attempt to lock that individual out of the job market for 6 months will likely be viewed as an unlawful restraint of trade, and so corporate counsel must structure agreements using variable, ascending tiers of restriction that directly correspond to the employee’s actual length of service and seniority.

A recent ruling has cleared the path to uncapped financial compensation following a forced resignation. A longstanding social worker had complaints raised over her work by an interim service manager. The ensuing investigation, however, failed to inform her of the specific allegations, their source, or their scope. This covert enquiry had a profound and detrimental effect on the mental health of the individual, leading to anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances. As a result, she submitted formal grievances that were not satisfactorily resolved before her eventual dismissal.

The social worker successfully pursued a complaint of indirect disability discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal at Tribunal, although she subsequently appealed the assessment of compensation. While the original Tribunal had initially upheld her claims and awarded a total of £153,906, including past loss of earnings, injury to feelings, expenses, a basic award, and £20,000 for pension loss, it made no award for any future loss of earnings.

The Appeal Tribunal forcefully dismissed the Council’s cross-appeal, ruling that any act of workplace discrimination which inflicts an ongoing psychiatric injury that is sufficient in severity to drive an employee to lose their career is fully recoverable under discrimination law. The Appeal Tribunal confirmed that compensation, under Section 124 of the Equality Act 2010, must be assessed based on the principles of tort law, which seek to place the injured party back into the exact financial position they would have enjoyed had the wrong never occurred, ruling that any financial losses resulting from a ‘career crash’ need only stem from the unlawful act itself. Thus, from a legal standpoint, a single act of discrimination inflicted during employment can cause the ultimate loss of a job and career, albeit in this case an indivisible psychiatric injury caused by a surreptitious investigation.

The flawed grievance procedures did not break the chain of causation or remedy the deep psychological damage already inflicted by the discrimination. Moreover, the Judge ruled that the original Tribunal had erred in arbitrarily diminishing the future loss of earnings and failing to properly apply the official Principles for Compensating Pension Loss when calculating her defined benefit pension scheme.

This austere ruling is a clear warning to executives concerning clandestine workplace investigations, as employers can no longer hide behind the pretext that an internal investigation was kept quiet to protect the employee. If a workplace process isolates vulnerable employees, fuels toxic office rumour-mongering, and prevents employees from defending themselves, then it can be legally classified as a traumatising act of discrimination.

Equal pay claims can grind on for years before resolution. However, the ground has shifted since the Court of Appeal (CoA) took Tesco’s own operating and training manual as the definitive source on employee roles rather than any granular analysis of their activity.

This claim began in 2018 when almost 60,000 Tesco store workers, primarily women, argued that their roles held equal value to those of their male counterparts in higher-paid distribution centre jobs. This pay dispute pivoted unexpectedly when the Tribunal issued its Judgement 1 in July 2023. Instead of parsing thousands of individual instances, it ruled that Tesco’s own weighty corporate manuals were the definitive evidence of role requirements. Tesco fought this argument vigorously, appealing for a rehearing that would have delayed the outcome by a further three years. However, the Tribunal held its ground, issuing a 619-page Judgement 2 in July 2024, appending a further 750 training documents.

The CoA delivered a resounding vindication for the claimants on four of five grounds in relation to Sections 64 and 65 of the Equality Act 2010, which define "relevant types of work" and establish that such work is deemed to be of "equal value" if it demands similar levels of effort, skill, and decision-making. Ultimately, this ruling effectively defines a ‘role’ as what the employer requires the employee to do – roles that are exhaustively detailed within Tesco’s voluminous training manuals.

This ruling is clear and constitutes a significant strategic advantage for litigants in equal pay claims, in effect shifting the body of evidence from invasive, second-by-second monitoring of employees’ daily activities to the blueprints of the company’s own operational handbooks and mandatory training manuals. The devil, it appears, lies in the detail, and these weighty tomes form the very rope by which employers effectively hang themselves. Indeed, such exhaustive detail can be leveraged to demonstrate the true complexity, effort, and skill a prescribed role actually requires.

By validating the use of extant corporate manuals to establish the baseline requirements of a position, the CoA has effectively streamlined the fact-gathering phase of equal pay litigation, and employers can no longer easily escape liability under a ‘Section 69 material factor defence’ by simply downplaying the everyday realities of female-dominated roles if their own written guidance suggests otherwise. So, if an employer demands exhaustive operational perfection on paper, then the law will hold them accountable when structuring employee pay. Employers should take care not to be caught in flagrant self-contradiction by their own documentation.

In the world of HR, the ubiquitous disclaimer "subject to references" is often viewed by employers as an escape clause, one which allows them to withdraw an offer at any time before “Day One”. However, a recent ruling has clarified that a conditional offer can become a binding legal contract long before an employee even steps into the role.

Mr. Swamy applied for the post of project manager and was formally offered the role "subject to receipt of satisfactory references, a right-to-work (RTW) check, and a successful six-month probation period". Mr. Swamy formally accepted the offer via email, provided the contact details of his references, and submitted his RTW documents. Loesche Energy Systems Ltd. (Loesche) then advised Mr. Swamy to seek a 12-month rental, as he was initially to be based in the UK. However, only weeks before he was due to start, Loesche informed him that their own client contract had been delayed and that they were "no longer able to offer" the position as specified. Mr. Swamy brought a claim for breach of contract, arguing that a binding agreement had existed, one which entitled him to notice pay.

The Appeal Tribunal sided with Mr. Swamy, finding that the offer letter had contained all the essential terms in terms of salary, hours, start date, and probation period. Crucially, as a probation period can only be initiated after employment begins, it was logical to view the entire package as a concluded contract, and thus Loesche did not have the unrestricted right to withdraw. By failing to provide sufficient notice, they had effectively breached the contract.

As the written contract was silent as to how much notice was required, the Tribunal had to infer a term of "reasonable notice". Despite Loesche’s attempt to argue for a "zero-day" notice period (or a statutory minimum of a week), the Tribunal determined that three months was the only reasonable term given the request that Mr. Swamy secure a 12-month rental property.

This ruling carries significant weight for anyone involved in recruitment, given that employees are now protected from “Day One” after they accept a clear offer, even if "onboarding" checks are in progress. If an employer withdraws an offer for reasons unrelated to background checks, such as a change in business fortunes, then significant damages can be awarded based on an implied notice period. Thus, employers should rigorously review offer letters and pre-employment correspondence and cannot rely on "standard terms" that the candidate has not seen. To avoid any unexpected liability, employers must be explicit about notice periods during the pre-start phase and understand that, once an offer is accepted, a legal "point of no return" has been crossed.

Employment disputes can drag on for years, which inevitably raises the question of how long is too long for a hearing to be deemed fair. Mr. Boateng was originally employed in January 2017 by a gentlemen’s outfitters at their branch in the Strand before being relocated and promoted to hiring manager. After an incident involving the claimant and several colleagues at the Stratford branch on 23 July 2019, he was ultimately dismissed on grounds of ‘misconduct’ on 28 October 2019 after an unsuccessful internal appeal.

In early 2020, Mr. Boateng initiated legal proceedings concerning over thirty allegations of racial and religious discrimination dating back to 2017, in parallel with a claim for unfair dismissal. However, the hearing was postponed for over a year due to the pandemic and a formal insolvency process. By the time the case reached a preliminary assessment in 2023, the evidentiary landscape had shifted dramatically, as 21 of the 22 individuals concerned had since left the company. Moreover, the outfitter reported that 17 of those former employees were either impossible to locate or else explicitly refused to participate in the tribunal. As the earliest allegations were by then historical, the employer argued that they could no longer mount a meaningful defence, as the collective "memory of the firm" had essentially dissipated.

Both tribunals concurred that the discrimination claims should be struck out under Rule 37(1)(e) of the Employment Tribunal Rules, which allows for the termination of a case if a "fair hearing" is no longer possible. As almost every key witness had been lost, this was deemed to have created a "substantial disadvantage" to the employer, one transcending mere inconvenience. As discrimination claims require an employer to be able to call the specific person accused of discrimination to explain their mental processes, per Section 136 of the Equality Act 2010, the narrative was fragmented. Thus, no balanced picture could emerge, as only the “dismissing officer” was still available to testify.

This case reiterates that both sides have the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR, thereby highlighting the importance of pursuing claims promptly and of keeping detailed contemporaneous records, as witnesses cannot later be relied upon to remain available or indeed helpful so many years after the fact. For employers, this case demonstrates the value of conducting timely and thorough internal investigations and of obtaining and preserving witness statements. Thus, even if a staff member leaves the company, a robust written record created at the time of the grievance can serve as a "documentary bridge" to ensure a fair hearing.

A pivotal ruling has raised a protective umbrella over those impacted by a toxic workplace environment, potentially extending employers' legal liability by months or even years.

An Employment Tribunal had to decide whether the employers of a harassed employee, who was actively considering a change of employment, could use this intention to leave as a pretext to slash their compensation. An employee of the British Council was posted to Morocco in October 2018, where she was subjected to a campaign of sustained harassment by a colleague, culminating in her filing a grievance. However, the report blamed her for “sending mixed messages,” romanticising the offender’s behaviour as that of a "spurned lover". Thus, the British Council refused to uphold her sexual harassment claims, despite actual evidence of physical assault. She resigned and presented her claims to an Employment Tribunal for constructive unfair dismissal, direct sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and victimisation.

The first Tribunal upheld all the claims, save that of victimisation, finding multiple repudiatory breaches of the implied term of trust and confidence, plus discriminatory conduct for which the British Council was vicariously liable. However, the first Tribunal applied a 35% Polkey reduction to the unfair dismissal compensation and a 35% Chagger reduction to discrimination compensation (based on the possibility that the appellant might have left her employment with a reduced benefits package, plus evidence that she was contemplating a move to other roles). She appealed the deductions, leading the British Council to cross-appeal, contending that the sexual harassment claim was ‘out of time’.

The Appeal Tribunal allowed the appeal on the Chagger deduction, as the victim’s urge to leave was influenced by the very harassment she had suffered, while the 35% Polkey deduction from discrimination compensation could not stand. The Appeal Tribunal also dismissed the British Council's cross-appeal, finding that the sexual harassment was part of a continuous pattern of discrimination.

This ruling upholds the notion that "career intentions" do not take place in an ivory tower. Thus, any compensation awarded should reflect a hypothetically successful career, given sufficient dignity and protection from harassment. Crucially, the "limitation period" for such a claim does not necessarily reset after every individual act of harassment. If a company handles a grievance poorly or tacitly permits a "climate" of harassment to persist, then it effectively creates a single, continuous legal event, one which allows a claimant to sue for historical misconduct. Thus, employers, especially in light of the recent advent of the

Employment Rights Act, must act swiftly to nip all such behaviours in the bud to prevent them from potentially escalating into a weighty compensation claim.