1. Breach of Contract: What happens when both parties are in repudiatory breach?
A firm was entitled to terminate the contract of a self-employed stockbroker without notice for a breach of trust and confidence even though the firm was also in repudiatory breach of contract.
2. Constructive Dismissal: Was a failure to return to work at the end of maternity leave an acceptance of the employer’s breach of contract?
An employee who did not return to work after her maternity leave had accepted her employer’s repudiatory breach of contract and had been constructively dismissed.
3. Constructive Dismissal: Witholding salary for three days was a repudiatory breach of contract
An employer who intentionally withheld salary for three days was in repudiatory breach of contract, entitling the employee to resign without notice.
4. Discrimination: When can cost considerations justify indirect discrimination?
The Court of Appeal has held that an employer’s need to reduce staff costs in order to balance its books during a public sector pay freeze was a legitimate aim capable of justifying indirect age discrimination.
5. Collective Redundancies: ECJ decision on reference period
The European Court of Justice has confirmed that, in deciding if the threshold for collective redundancy consultation is triggered, the reference period must be calculated taking into account any period of 30 or 90 consecutive days during which an individual dismissal took place. This means that the employer must look both backward and forward from an individual dismissal.
6. Court of Appeal: Did 37 separate communications amount to a protected disclosure?
The Court of Appeal has held they did not, and an employment tribunal was right on the facts of this case not to aggregate the disclosures to look at the composite picture.
