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Employment law brief: 7 June 2018

07 June 2018 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7796 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Ian Smith tackles ‘no oral variations’ clauses, zero-hour contracts & who qualifies as a ‘worker’

  • Cycle courier qualifies as a ‘worker’.
  • Zero-hours part-timer can claim a valid comparison.
  • ‘No oral variation’ clauses effective; effect on ‘entire agreement’ clauses.

In a month when we have all been assailed by frantic emails from all sorts of weird and wonderful organisations wanting to stay our best friends after the GDPR came into force (the usual response of most of us being a maniacal laugh and an audible ‘you must be joking’), the one point of primary importance for employment lawyers about the new Regulation is that the view of the Information Commissioner’s Office is that it does not affect its long-standing Employment Practices Data Protection Code (see Harvey at s [1801]), which continues to apply and for which there are no current plans for replacement.

Turning to the case law this month, the three cases below all concern issues relating to contracts of employment – (1) the basic definition of a ‘worker’

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
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