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Employment law brief: 13 May 2020

13 May 2020 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7886 / Categories: Features , Employment , Covid-19
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As the shutters & umbrellas close at Carluccio’s, Ian Smith reflects on how the current emergency is starting to throw up case law on areas of potential conflict with standard tenets of employment law

In brief

  • Variation of contract and the government furloughing scheme.
  • Re-engagement if not the best candidate for the available job.
  • Duty to make reasonable adjustments and its application to electronic working.

The last month has seen further specific legislation to deal with the coronavirus emergency, in particular amending the rules on statutory sick pay again to deem very vulnerable people in preventive lockdown to be incapable of work and providing that furloughed employees on 80% of earnings can count their previous earnings if claiming statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory shared parental pay or statutory parental bereavement pay. This emergency is also starting to throw up case law on areas of potential conflict (or at least awkward overlaps) with standard tenets of employment law. The first case here is one such,

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Russell-Cooke—Susanna Heley

Russell-Cooke—Susanna Heley

Legal director appointment bolsters public and regulatory team

Slater Heelis—five appointments

Slater Heelis—five appointments

Firm appoints training partner and four new trainees

Bolt Burdon Kemp—Natasha Orr

Bolt Burdon Kemp—Natasha Orr

Firm strengthens military claims team with senior associate hire

NEWS
Government plans for offender ‘restriction zones’ risk creating ‘digital cages’ that blur punishment with surveillance, warns Henrietta Ronson, partner at Corker Binning, in this week's issue of NLJ
Louise Uphill, senior associate at Moore Barlow LLP, dissects the faltering rollout of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 in this week's NLJ
Judgments are ‘worthless without enforcement’, says HHJ Karen Walden-Smith, senior circuit judge and chair of the Civil Justice Council’s enforcement working group. In this week's NLJ, she breaks down the CJC’s April 2025 report, which identified systemic flaws and proposed 39 reforms, from modernising procedures to protecting vulnerable debtors
Writing in NLJ this week, Katherine Harding and Charlotte Finley of Penningtons Manches Cooper examine Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, the Supreme Court ruling that narrowed what counts as matrimonial property, and its potential impact upon claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
In this week's NLJ, Dr Jon Robins, editor of The Justice Gap and lecturer at Brighton University, reports on a campaign to posthumously exonerate Christine Keeler. 60 years after her perjury conviction, Keeler’s son Seymour Platt has petitioned the king to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, arguing she was a victim of violence and moral hypocrisy, not deceit. Supported by Felicity Gerry KC, the dossier brands the conviction 'the ultimate in slut-shaming'
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