Knowledge

Tribunals commonly make substantial discrimination awards against an
employer, and a small award (often of just a few hundred pounds)
against the individual harasser who committed the actual act of
discrimination (and who is deemed to have aided and abetted the
discrimination under the various statutes).

In Fisher v Hoopoe Finance Ltd, the EAT has held that an employer had not
given sufficient financial information regarding possible alternative employment
within the company, to a potentially redundant employee.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), in Gibson v Scottish Ambulance Service,
has considered the appropriate test to be applied under the Part-time Workers
(Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 (PTW Regulations).

The recently reported case of Jones v Wood GWD 2005 17-304
concerned an action for rectification of a disposition which contained
an inaccurate plan, under the provisions enabling rectification of
defectively expressed documents contained in sections 8 and 9 of the
Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1985.

The ECJ has issued its ruling in Celtec v. Astley on the issue of whether
there is a particular point in time at which an undertaking is deemed to have
transferred in accordance with the TUPE regulations, or whether a gradual transfer
may take place over a period of time.

The current uncertainty surrounding the rights of oil workers under the Working Time Directive looks set to continue well beyond the outcome of an Employment Tribunal preliminary hearing held in Aberdeen this week.

The EAT, in Scott & Co v Richardson, has considered the appropriate test for deciding whether an employer has ‘some other substantial reason’ for dismissing an employee.

The European Court of Justice (‘Court’) has published a highly significant
judgment on procurement matters – Fabricom SA v Belgium (Judgment Joined Cases
C-21/03, C-34/03, 3 March 2005). The decision relates to the interpretation
of both the classic (public sector) and the utilities public procurement directives.

Fabricom SA is a contractor which regularly submits tenders for public contracts
in the water, energy, transport and telecoms sectors. The Court was asked by

On 15 February 2005 the European Court of Justice (the “EJC”) delivered its judgment on the long running Tetra Laval case. The EJC dismissed the European Commission’s (the “Commission”) appeal against the judgment of the European Court of First Instance (the “CFI”). However, there was some satisfaction for the Commission in relation to the standard of evidence required to enable the Commission to prohibit a merger under the EC Merger Regulation.

The Working Time Directive (93/104/EC) was adopted under article 118A of the
Treaty establishing the European Community to “encourage improvements,
especially of the working environment, as regards safety and health of workers”.
Offshore workers were initially excluded from the Directive when it came into
force in 1998, as the Commission and member states agreed that these sectors
would require their own special rules. The main proposal, the Horizontal Amending

From time to time there are circumstances in which the device of a disposition a non domino, that is, a deed of transfer of title to heritable property by
someone who is not the owner of that property, can be used to useful effect
to found a prescriptive title to a property, for example in the case of a piece
of apparently ownerless ground, where no owner can be found after appropriate
searches and enquiries have been carried out. It is not a device that can be

The Court of Appeal, in Department for Work & Pensions v Atasha Webley, has held that a failure to renew or extend a fixed-term
contract did not amount to less favourable treatment of a fixed-term employee
in comparison to a permanent employee.