In an article published in Compliance & Risk Journal, Kim Sartin, Lauren French and Melissa Chan discuss the new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers in the course of their employment that came into force on 26 October 2024.
On 26 July 2024, in response to the UK Government’s Investment Research Review on the effectiveness of the investment research market, the FCA published its final rules and guidance to permit the bundling of payments for investment research and trade execution by investment firms. The final rules, which took effect on 1 August 2024, adapt the FCA’s policy to evolving markets and better align with the regulatory position in the EU and US. The FCA has now proposed to extend reintroduction of the bundled payment model to managers of pooled funds – i.e., AIFMs and UCITS ManCos.
In an article for Practical law, Stephen Ratcliffe and Rachel Wilson discuss the employment tribunal decision of Thandi and others v Next Retail Ltd and another, which considers the extent to which employers can rely on markets factors as a “material factor” defense to an equal pay claim
The new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees will come into force on 26 October 2024. Following a consultation during the summer, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has published an eight-step guide to preventing sexual harassment at work and made further updates to its technical guidance on sexual harassment and harassment at work
With effect from 1 January 2024, the government amended the Equality Act 2010 (EqA) to include associative indirect discrimination claims, with the stated aim of replicating and preserving existing EU case law. The EAT has confirmed that such claims were possible in relation to events occurring prior to 1 January too, under then-applicable principles of EU law. This means that where an employer applies a provision, criterion, or practice (PCP) which puts people with a particular protected characteristic at a disadvantage, and where the claimant also suffers that same disadvantage, the claimant does not need to have the same protected characteristic as the disadvantaged group. (BA v Rollett and Ors, EAT).
The UK Government passed the long-awaited Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) on 24 May 2024.
The DMCC will bring radical change to the enforcement of consumer law in the UK, introducing new powers for the CMA to issue direct fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover for breaches. This spotlight series will focus on the substantive changes to consumer law introduced by the DMCC, and how it compares to the position in the EU.
In an article published in Compliance & Risk Journal, John Bracken and Lorren Martin explore the issue of non-financial misconduct in UK financial services firms, and how best to manage the potential risks.
In an article published in HR magazine, David Woodward gives advice on what businesses should consider when conducting a workplace investigation.
The Equality Act 2010 gives outsourced workers broad protections from discrimination by the client on whose contract they work. However, the Court of Appeal has held that the protection does not extend to the terms of the workers’ contracts of employment with the service provider, such as pay. The EAT had held that the protection could be engaged where the client had effectively dictated the terms on which the workers were employed, but the Court of Appeal has rejected that position. Companies with outsourced workforces can still be liable in many other respects, for example if they restrict access to onsite facilities or refuse to allow individuals to work on the contract on discriminatory grounds.
The UK will have a general election on 4 July 2024, which will decide who the next government will be. The political parties have been publishing their employment and HR-related proposals, which we summarize in this article. We have limited ourselves to Labour, the Conservatives, Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, as the current top-polling parties fielding candidates throughout Great Britain.