E-mailed notice of appeal need not appear in EAT inbox to be received
In Patel v South Tyneside Council and ors the EAT has held that an e-mailed notice of appeal was received by the EAT when the sender received a 'successful delivery' message. Whether the e-mail was received depended on whether it 'hit' the EAT's server - the fact that the message did not appear in the EAT's inbox did not matter.
Court of Appeal confirms that out of time equal pay claims can proceed in the High Court
In Abdulla and ors v Birmingham City Council the Court of Appeal has held that equal pay claims, which would have been out of time in an employment tribunal, can proceed as breach of contract claims in the High Court. While the civil courts have a discretion to strike out equal pay claims that it is more 'convenient' for a tribunal to hear, the expiry of the tribunal time limit will usually be a circumstance of considerable weight against strike-out. Furthermore, only in exceptional cases, such as abuse of process, will the civil court have to take into account the reasons why a tribunal claim was not presented in time in exercising its discretion.
Lay members to be removed from the EAT and tribunals to impose employer penalties
The Government's response to its 'Resolving Workplace Disputes' consultation provides further detail of its reasoning in relation to already announced decisions such as the increase in qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims. The response also contains a number of reforms not announced in Vince Cable's speech to the EEF, such as plans to allow employment judges to sit alone in unfair dismissal cases, and judges to sit alone in the EAT, and to allow tribunals to award costs of up to GBP 20,000 against vexatious claimants. Where possible, the Government intends to implement the changes in April 2012.
Government announces 'radical' employment law reforms
After months of speculation and leaks to the press the Government has announced its plans for the 'most radical reform to the employment law system for decades'. The wide-ranging changes, which include reform of the tribunal system, the introduction of tribunal fees, 'no fault' dismissals for micro-companies, and reducing the consultation period for collective redundancies, were described by Business Secretary Vince Cable as 'emphatically not an attempt to give businesses an easy ride at the expense of their staff'.