Territorial Jurisdiction Revisited

The EAT has revisited the troubled issue of territorial jurisdiction for unfair dismissal and discrimination claims and, in so doing, has closed off an avenue of opportunity for non-UK respondents. The claimant was a Pakistani Muslim, employed by a Hong Kong company as a trader under a contract subject to Hong Kong law. He was seconded to London to work for a separate legal entity which was part of the same group as the respondent. He brought claims of unfair dismissal and of discrimination on grounds of race and religious belief. Read on

Team Moves and the Duty of Trust and Confidence

As anticipated by those who view factual merits as important, the Court of Appeal has rejected the appeal of BGC in its bitter feud with Tullett Prebon. Read on

Employee Competition

The law of employee competition has undergone significant development over the last four years, with the international dimension casting an ever-longer shadow over litigation to enforce restrictive covenants and protect trade secrets. Read on

Case note:

Ivan Hare (instructed by Bindmans) has established that Joe Hashman's beliefs in the sanctity of life and the moral duty to avoid unnecessary suffering to animals constitute a philosophical belief for the purposes of discrimination law. Joe Hashman is a well-known animal rights activist who already has the important decision of the ECHR in Hashman and Harrup v United Kingdom (setting aside his binding over for engaging in hunt sabotage) to his name. He claims that his contract of employment as a gardener was terminated by active hunters when they realised who he was. The case will now proceed to a merits hearing in the Employment Tribunal. The case follows the EAT's decision in Grainger v Nicholson which was argued successfully by Dinah Rose QC and Ivan Hare in 2009.