The Court of Appeal has ordered a defendant to disclose e-mails to the claimant company on the basis of their former relationship as agent and principal. The court confirmed that the principal was entitled to require production by the agent…
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined the Bank of Scotland plc £75,000 for a serious breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. The ICO found that, over a four-year period, the bank repeatedly sent faxes containing customers' personal data…
The ‘controlling mind’ behind a property investment company that went into liquidation with an estimated deficiency of more than £70 million has been banned from being a company director for 12 years. In making the order under the Company Directors…
Businesses faced with employees making repeated unsubstantiated complaints of discrimination will have to think twice before dismissing them following a Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision. The EAT held that the dismissal of an employee who brought a series of grievances…
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill has now received Royal Assent. One of the more important changes for industry is that creative designs which are used in an industrial process will be protected for the life of the creator plus…
A recent Court of Appeal judgment, dealing with a situation where a party has suspended or delayed compliance with its contractual obligations, is likely to be of interest to many businesses. The economic downturn has made this scenario increasingly common…
The ECJ has ruled that an employer's redundancy selection exercise must not discriminate against workers who have taken parental leave. In this case, the employer used selection criteria from a recent appraisal process, which the employee had not participated in…
In 2012/13, the number of monetary penalties imposed by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations (SI 2011/1208) more than doubled, reaching 23…
An employment tribunal has decided that a law firm's mandatory retirement age of 65 for partners was a proportionate means of achieving the legitimate aims of workforce planning and staff retention. Therefore, the retirement age was objectively justified and did…
Businesses that sell directly to consumers should be made aware of a Court of Appeal decision which held that a "commercial practice" can refer to a single act or incident, as well as repeated conduct. This case involved the supply…