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NLJ this week: Championship League refs decision goes beyond the pitch

25 October 2024
Issue: 8091 / Categories: Legal News , Employment , Sports litigation , Tribunals , Tax
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The Supreme Court’s recent football referee decision on the common law test for employment status has ‘wide ramifications’ for employment law, Harry Sheehan, Devereux Chambers, writes in this week’s NLJ

The case, Revenue and Customs Commissioners v Professional Game Match Officials, revolved around the working terms of a company that supplies referees and match officials for high-level football competitions such as the Premier League and FA Cup. HMRC argued that referees who officiate in their spare time while being employed full-time elsewhere—primarily refs in Championship League and FA Cup games—are employed by the company and should be taxed as such. The company disagreed.

Sheehan, who was instructed as junior counsel for Professional Game Match Officials in the appeal to the Supreme Court, writes that the decision ‘provides essential and authoritative guidance to a legal test which is the key to accessing the rights and obligations that form the backbone of employment law’.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Jersey litigation lead appointed to global STEP Council

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

Firm invests in future talent with new training cohort

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
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
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
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
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
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
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