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Employment law brief: 11 December 2019

11 December 2019 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7868 / Categories: Features , Employment
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What makes people tick? Ian Smith signs off for the year with some sobering disclosures on motivation & revenge
  • Establishing ‘the reason’ for dismissal in an organisation.
  • Public interest and the claimant’s motivation.

The cases considered this month concern the law on protection of whistleblowers (as it happens, at the same time as the EU has produced a draft Directive on this issue, which hitherto has been purely a question of UK domestic law). The first, and most important, is the decision of the Supreme Court on how to determine the thinking/motivation of ‘the employer’ in an organisation, in particular where the dismissing manager has genuinely done so for another reason, but has been misled by another manager seeking revenge on the whistleblower. As will be seen, the significance of this case extends to other areas of unfair dismissal law. The second case is a decision of the Court of Appeal on the important but potentially difficult element of ‘public interest’ and the claimant’s motivation in making the disclosure(s)

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

FOIL—Bridget Tatham

FOIL—Bridget Tatham

Forum of Insurance Lawyers elects president for 2026

Gibson Dunn—Robbie Sinclair

Gibson Dunn—Robbie Sinclair

Partner joinslabour and employment practice in London

Muckle LLP—Ella Johnson

Muckle LLP—Ella Johnson

Real estate dispute resolution team welcomes newly qualified solicitor

NEWS
Solicitors are installing panic buttons and thumb print scanners due to ‘systemic and rising’ intimidation including death and arson threats from clients
Ministers’ decision to scrap plans for their Labour manifesto pledge of day one protection from unfair dismissal was entirely predictable, employment lawyers have said
Cryptocurrency is reshaping financial remedy cases, warns Robert Webster of Maguire Family Law in NLJ this week. Digital assets—concealable, volatile and hard to trace—are fuelling suspicions of hidden wealth, yet Form E still lacks a section for crypto-disclosure
NLJ columnist Stephen Gold surveys a flurry of procedural reforms in his latest 'Civil way' column
Paper cyber-incident plans are useless once ransomware strikes, argues Jack Morris of Epiq in NLJ this week
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