The Court of Appeal recently ruled in a case which asked whether fatherhood is sufficient to warrant contact with a child and decided that the answer is ‘no’. The case was unusual. It involved a married couple who wanted to…
In 2009, the Government and the Association of British Insurers entered into an agreement, the Statement of Principles on the Provision of Flood Insurance, which committed home insurance providers to making flood insurance as widely available as possible. This agreement…
Businesses with subsidiaries should be notified of the first reported case in which a parent company was found liable to an employee of its subsidiary on tort law principles. The Court of Appeal held that the parent company owed a…
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have published new guidance intended to help personal service companies determine their correct employment status. HMRC will take a risk-based approach to consider how likely it is that they need to check whether IR35 applies…
A Northern Irish company has been prosecuted under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007) and fined £187,500, plus £13,000 costs, over the death of an employee. The employee was killed after being hit by…
In a recent case an employer dismissed a senior employee due to a breakdown in the working relationship with a payment in lieu of notice. It was then discovered that the employer could have dismissed the employee for gross misconduct…
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have accepted that smartphones supplied by employers are not computers and thus a 2006 statement of practice that these would be subject to the benefits in kind regime that applies to computers is not applicable…
A recent ruling in which ‘village green’ status was withdrawn from an area of land in Dorset highlights the fact that the granting of village green status does not necessarily mean that the land will be free from the risk…
A recent case shows how important it is to make sure that when a time limit for taking action is specified, it is not inadvertently breached. When a company was sold, the purchase agreement specified that some of the consideration…
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have published new guidance intended to help personal service companies determine their correct employment status. HMRC will take a risk-based approach to consider how likely it is that they need to check whether IR35 applies…