Following allegations made against fans who attended the Hapoel Tel Aviv game regarding the use of Nazi like Salutes Levy & McRae intervened with UEFA and explained what had taken place had been misunderstood. UEFA have dropped the complaint and Rangers are in the clear.

A Court of Appeal judgment of December 21, 2006 in Burlo v Langley & Carter [2006] EWCA Civ 1778 confirms what an employee is entitled to receive by way ofcompensation when unfairly dismissed without notice.
In this case, Ms Burlo (B), a nanny for Langley and Carter had resigned and was
serving out two months’ notice. However, B was unfit for work during the whole notice period. In the meantime B’s employers had employed a new nanny. They informed B that she was no longer required to work out her notice and made no payment to her in lieu of notice. B brought claims for wrongful
and unfair dismissal and the employment tribunal awarded her eight weeks’ pay at her normal weekly wage for wrongful dismissal,
and made a basic and compensatory award for unfair dismissal that did not relate to the notice period.
On appeal the EAT found a provision in B’s contract that provided for payment of statutory sick pay was effective, and reduced the damages for wrongful dismissal to eight weeks’ statutory sick pay. B had argued that, under the Employment Rights Act 1996, s.123, she was entitled to compensation for unfair dismissal for the eight week notice period
at her normal weekly wage and cited the principle of compensation outlined in Norton Tool Co Ltd v Tewson (1973) 1 WLR.
The Court of Appeal dismissed B’s appeal and found that all Norton Tool
allowed for was compensation for whatan employee has actually lost by not being allowed to work out their notice period, i.e.
in this case, the statutory sick pay that she would have received if she had not been summarily dismissed.
Source: Court of Appeal, December, 2006

Under current rules anyone can give employment law advice and anyone
can represent anyone at an employment tribunal hearing. This is
set to change in 2007.
Under rules now available in draft form it will be a criminal offence for
anyone to provide such services unless they are registered with and authorised
by a Regulator appointed by the Secretary of State or are exempted. Professional indemnity insurance will be a requirement,
although the detail of that requirement has not yet been worked out. Practising
solicitors, barristers and legal executives are amongst those exempted.
The rules are not restricted to employment law matters (in particular
they also cover personal injury claims) but the government has said that employment tribunal claims, and companies offering to
represent parties in employment tribunal cases, will be amongst the first to be
regulated.

An example in November 2006 of how the well-intended October 2004 statutory dispute resolution procedures have created at least as many problems as they solve underlines the urgent need for their review.
A dismissed employee filed a disability discrimination claim with an employment tribunal after the normal time limit had expired. He argued that as he had started a statutory grievance procedure under the Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution).
Regulations 2004 it followed that time was automatically extended by 3 months in accordance with those regulations and that his claim was thus presented in time. When Under current rules anyone can give
employment law advice and anyone can represent anyone at an
employment tribunal hearing. This is set to change in 2007.
Under rules now available in draft form it will be a criminal offence for anyone to provide such services unless they are registered with and authorised
by a Regulator appointed by the Secretary of State or are exempted. Professional indemnity insurance will be a requirement, damage access to justice, with previous research suggesting that the legal aid work
supplier base is contracting and the average age of practitioners increasing.
Law Society chief executive vice president Andrew Holroyd said: “Serious
questions are raised by these survey results about whether there will be enough
suitably qualified lawyers to meet the demand for legal aid work in the future.
Incentives to go into such a poorly paid area of law are few for law graduates who are heavily in debt when the rewards offered by the private and commercial
sectors are much higher.”
Source: The Law Society, January, 2007 the employer pointed out that the statutory grievance procedure does not apply on dismissal (other than in constructive dismissal cases) the employee ingeniously
argued that the grievance he had raised was concerned with the way in which his
appeal against dismissal had been handled and was not a grievance that he had been dismissed.
Both the employment tribunal and on appeal the EAT have given short shrift to
this hair splitting argument (although on the particular facts they decided it was just and equitable to allow the employee an extension of time under the normal rules which apply in discrimination cases).
www.emplaw.co.uk, December 7, 2006

Many legal aid law firms believe that the number of solicitors applying for
legal aid work will drop following Government reforms. 58 per cent of respondents to a Law Society online survey believe that their
recruitment of newly trainee solicitors will decrease once the reforms are in
place. 48 per cent believe that the drop will be a substantial one, while a mere
6 per cent predict an improvement in their recruitment rates. The equivalent
percentages for the recruitment of qualified solicitors are 77 per cent, 53 per cent and 5 per cent. The findings add weight to concerns that the reforms could seriously An example in November 2006 of how the well-intended October
2004 statutory dispute resolution procedures have created at least
as many problems as they solve underlines the urgent need for
their review.
A dismissed employee filed a disability discrimination claim with an employment
tribunal after the normal time limit had expired. He argued that as he had started a statutory grievance procedure under the
Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004 it followed that time was automatically extended by 3 months in accordance with those regulations and that his claim was thus presented in time. When
Under current rules anyone can give employment law advice and anyone
can represent anyone at an employment tribunal hearing. This is
set to change in 2007.
Under rules now available in draft form it will be a criminal offence for
anyone to provide such services unless they are registered with and authorised
by a Regulator appointed by the Secretary of State or are exempted. Professional indemnity insurance will be a requirement,
damage access to justice, with previous research suggesting that the legal aid work supplier base is contracting and the average
age of practitioners increasing. Law Society chief executive vice
president Andrew Holroyd said: “Serious questions are raised by these survey
results about whether there will be enough suitably qualified lawyers to meet the
demand for legal aid work in the future. Incentives to go into such a poorly paid
area of law are few for law graduates who are heavily in debt when the rewards
offered by the private and commercial sectors are much higher.”
Source: The Law Society, January, 2007

In December 2006 HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) published a consultation document, Modernising Powers, Deterrents and Safeguards: A new approach to penalties for incorrect tax returns.

The consultation document intends to bring a common approach to the imposition of penalties across all the various taxes. HMRC considers that penalties are an effective way of deterring non-compliance and should be applied where taxpayers understate the tax that they should pay because they failed to take ‘reasonable care’ or ‘deliberately chose to understate it’.

HMRC said that it does not plan to apply penalties when mistakes or misinterpretations of fact or law occur, or where reasonable care has been taken. Presently, for PAYE purposes, penalties are based on 100 per cent of the tax underpaid and then mitigated according to, for example, the taxpayer’s co-operation and the gravity of the underpayment.

HMRC is proposing a new regime that, although still geared to the amount of income tax underpaid, will be based on three increasing levels of ‘seriousness’ relating to the underpayment:

• failures to take reasonable care (whichwould include ‘negligence’);
• deliberate understatements or overclaims;
• deliberate understatement where the behaviour is aggravated by concealment but the offence is not to be investigated with a view to criminal prosecution.

HMRC is considering the possibility of suspending penalties for a specified period. This would not be appropriate for deliberate understatement, but could be considered for a failure to take reasonable care. Where the taxpayer can demonstrate at the end of a specified period that the cause of any understatement has been corrected and an improvement sustained, the penalty would be cancelled.

Copies of the consultation document can be found at: www.hmrc.gov.uk/news/index.htm

Source: HM Revenue and Customs,January 2007

Workers who have close relationships with their managers are less likely to attempt to lie of withhold information in workplace communications than those who do not, according to the conclusions of a new study by psychologists at the University of Central Lancashire.

Findings presented at the annual occupational psychology conference of the British Psychological Society this week indicate that up to a third of workplace communications “involve some form of deception”.

The researchers questioned more than 4,700 workers as part of the study. Of these, 15 per cent “admitted to actually lying” to their employers. “Distortion of information”, “withholding information”, “providing deliberately ambiguous information” and “changing the subject in order to deceive” were found to be the most common forms of deception.

“This study suggests that deception occurs frequently in everyday workplace communications,” said lead researcher Dr Sandi Mann. “Some types of deception occur more frequently than others and managers and employees should be on their guard for these.”

The study also found that employees seeking to take fraudulent sickness absence were more likely to contact their managers by email or phone than to explain their absence in person.

Source: Financial Times, January 10, 2007

New compensation limits for tribunal claims will take effect where the “appropriate date” (for example the date of dismissal) is on or after 1st February 2007.

They are set out in the Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2006. These are annual RPI linked increases. The main changes this year include an increase from 58,400 to 60,600 in the maximum an employment tribunal can award as “compensatory award”, for example in unfair dismissal cases (there is no maximum in discrimination cases).

There is also an increase from 290 to 310 in the maximum amount of “a week’s pay” when calculating basic award of compensation for unfair dismissal and/or statutory redundancy pay. Also it is worth noting that under the Work and Families Act 2006 the government has power to make a one-off additional, “inflation-busting”, increase to the limits tribunals can award.

www.emplaw.co.uk, December 7, 2006

A disabled employee of a stairlift manufacturer has been awarded £6,000 compensation after the firm refused to install one of its own products in its office.

IT designer, David Ratcliffe, 36, received the payout after an employment tribunal ruled that Stannah Stairlifts had discriminated against him. Mr Ratcliffe, who suffers from chronic back pain and walks with crutches, informed the company that he had difficulties moving between floors.

However, the company refused his request for a stairlift to be installed saying “everyone would want to ride on it and no work would get done”. Mr Ratcliffe’s contracted was terminated two weeks after he made the request.

Southampton Employment Tribunal ruled that Stannah had discriminated against Mr Ratcliffe by refusing to make “reasonable adjustments” for his disability as required by the Disability Discrimination Act.

Source: Times, January 10, 2007

Six million workers would be eligible for extra holidays under Government plans to add bank holidays to statutory annual leave entitlement.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is launching a second consultation on the implementation of the changes. Under the proposals, statutory annual leave entitlement would be increased in two stages, rising from 20 to 24 days on October 1 2007, and from 24 to 28 days on October 1 2008.

Research by the DTI found that the groups most likely to benefit from the changes include women, part-time workers, low-paid workers, and workers from ethnic minority communities.

“Most companies already recognise that good holiday provision makes good business sense,” said employment minister Jim Fitzpatrick. “Holiday entitlement can be a key factor in recruiting and retaining staff. Holidays are also important for productivity as they help minimise sick leave and keep people motivated and refreshed.

“We’ve worked closely with business and have wanted to make sure that they have time to prepare for the changes.”

Copies of the consultation can be found at: www.dti.gov.uk/employment/holidays/index.html

The second consultation will close on April 13 2007.

Source: DTI press release, January 11, 2007

A transsexual who alleged that she was forced to leave her job at Hitachi Data Systems after having sex change surgery has lost her claim for £500,000 compensation.

Jessica Bussert, formerly Josh, had claimed she was demoted following the surgery to “feminise” her face and breasts; the unfair dismissal claim was thought to be the largest ever under the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999.
Ms Bussert was a principal consultant for Hitachi and alleged that she was demoted and issued with a negative appraisal following the facial and breast surgery in March 2005. She claimed this resulted in her taking sick leave for stress in September 2005. On her return in February 2006, the company allegedly stopped paying her.
A Reading employment tribunal ruled Ms Bussert had left the job “of her own
free will”.

Hitachi commented: “Whilst we were confident we would win, we are obviously delighted that in its summation the Employment Tribunal has so totally vindicated the way that the company and its managers handled the situation surrounding Ms Bussert’s gender reassignment.

The Employment Tribunal’s unanimous verdict was extremely positive and supportive of Hitachi Data Systems’ actions.”

Source: www.pinknews.co.uk, January 8, 2007

The right of EU workers to take strike action could be put at risk by a forthcoming ruling at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), European trade unions have warned.

The case in question, which was heard by the Court this week, centres on the refusal by Latvian construction firm Laval to sign a collective wage agreement with Swedish trade unions regarding a construction project in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Laval instead manned the project site with Latvian workers who were paid less than half the average wage for the sector; the site was subsequently blockaded in protest by Swedish workers.

The key issue in the case is whether workers should be governed by the labour laws of the countries in which they work or by those of their home countries. Germany, France, Spain and Italy are among the EU Member States to have given their backing to Swedish position; the UK, however, is thought to support Laval.

Erland Olauson, the vice-president of the Swedish trade union confederation, commented: “If the Court rules that countries cannot enforce their own labour standards it will be a race to the bottom.”

The tensions over the issue among EU Member States will be further heightened this week when the ECJ hears the similar case of a Finnish shipping firm, Viking Line, that has employed Estonian workers.

Source: Financial Times, January 10, 2007