- Court of Appeal consideration of ‘substitution’ clauses in gig economy cases.
- Adjudicating on a whistleblowing case—Employment Appeal Tribunal advice.
- Disclosure—legal professional privilege and the ‘iniquity’ exception.
- Anonymity orders—embarrassment/stigma not enough.
The four cases considered this month all contain useful guidance for tribunals and all the rest of us struggling blindly in the Stygian gloom of employment law. In the first, the Court of Appeal gave welcome consideration to the perennial problem of substitution clauses in cases on employment/worker status, and did so specifically in the context of gig economy working. In the second case the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) strongly recommended a structured approach to adjudication in whistle blowing cases.
The third and fourth cases concerned matters of procedure, rather than substantive liability. In the third the EAT considered the ‘iniquity’ exception to professional privilege (coming to a conclusion that claimants’ representatives might find worrying), and in the fourth it gave a strong indication that normally an application for an anonymity order