Ian Smith explains why 2006 went out with a bang
If only to make Christmas and New Year a time of even greater gloom and unremitting misery for the average Harvey-editor-in-the-street, 2006 insisted on going out with something of a bang. An element of judicial desk clearing led to a flurry of case law on important topics, right up to the close of play before the break. The timing of this was only topped by those awfully nice people at HM Revenue & Customs who managed once again to include in the very last post their Merry Christmas missive with its customary demand for money with menaces.
In among this recent case law, three cases stand out and are considered here. The first is a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) under Mr Justice Elias (President) giving guidance to tribunals on the thorny question of when a long-serving agency worker transmutes into a direct
employee of the client; the gist of this guidance is to be much more cautious than previous case law may have been thought to suggest. The second
