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07 November 2019 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7863 / Categories: Features , Employment , Discrimination
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Employment law brief: 7 November 2019

In this month’s employment brief, Ian Smith raises a glass to legal privilege in the face of pub gossip, & the Pandora’s Box opened by the recent whistle-blowing judgment
  • Judges can be ‘workers’.
  • No liability for third-party harassment.
  • Reversing the burden of proof in discrimination cases.

Dangerous places, London pubs. We might have benefited from Christopher Marlowe’s views on this, if he had not been murdered in one. What brought this to mind this month was a Court of Appeal decision (Curless v Shell International Ltd [2019] EWCA Civ 1710, [2019] All ER (D) 137 (Oct)) the facts of which occurred in that den of lawyers and other assorted ne’er-do-wells, the Old Bank of England pub near the law courts. The claimant in a case suddenly realised that a gaggle of lawyers just behind him were in fact talking about his case, from the other side. He was being faced with being ‘managed out’ by redundancy, but he thought it was for other, more dubious reasons.

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Partner joinscorporate and finance practice in British Virgin Islands

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Firm strengthens children department with adoption and surrogacy expert

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Media and technology expert joins employment team as partner in Cambridge

NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
The winners of the LexisNexis Legal Awards 2026 have now been announced, marking another outstanding celebration of excellence, innovation, and impact across the legal profession
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
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