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Ever increasing circles

20 June 2013 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7565 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Ian Smith reports on the secular, spiritual & circular nature of employment law

We have been graced this last month with two decisions by the Supreme Court on employment matters. Both concerned relatively esoteric areas of the law, but ones in which decisions at the highest level are welcome.

Church matters

Employment law sometimes seems to develop in large, lazy circles. The direction of that development in relation to the legal status of religious ministers has in recent years been towards the extension of employment status, in spite of a couple of older authorities pointing away from such status which looked increasingly anomalous (though not actually reversed). The decision of the Supreme Court (by a 4-1 majority) in President of the Methodist Conference v Preston [2013] UKSC 29 has now reversed that direction and taken us back to what originally appeared to be the case, namely that: (i) there is no rule against employment status for a minister; (ii) there is no presumption against it; but (iii) likewise it is impossible to generalise

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DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

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Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

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Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, 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
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
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
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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