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United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Key definition
Trust and confidence definition What does Trust and confidence mean? In employment practice, trust and confidence describes the mutual expectation that neither employer nor employee will, without reasonable and proper cause, act in a way likely to destroy or seriously damage the working relationship. In England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, this is an implied contractual term developed by case law (not statute). In Ireland, the courts have similarly recognised an implied duty of mutual trust and confidence; it is not codified but applied through case law and the Unfair Dismissals regime. Key features and use: - Reciprocal obligation applying to both parties. - A serious breach is typically repudiatory...
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Mutual trust and confidence in employment contracts: scope, breach, constructive/summary dismissal, Johnson exclusion, interaction with express terms and statutory rights, and key case law
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Practice notes
This Practice Note examines the implied duty of mutual Trust and confidence (in a Fiduciary sense) embedded in every Contract of employment. It explores the reciprocal obligation, requiring both Employer and employee to refrain, without reasonable and proper cause, from conduct intended or likely to undermine or seriously damage the employment relationship. It addresses breach of the term as a basis for constructive dismissal, the Johnson exclusion on damages, breach by the employee justifying summary dismissal, its interaction with express terms, whether breach is invariably repudiatory, the relevance of intention, reasonable and proper cause, and breach by the employer where the employee is already in repudiatory breach.
The nature of the term or duty
Each contract of employment is treated as incorporating a term of trust and confidence. It obliges employers and employees not to act, without reasonable and proper cause, in a way calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the bond of confidence and trust between them. The term may influence every facet of the employer–employee relationship and operates as a catch-all means of characterising unreasonable conduct in employment...
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Web page updated on 21/05/2026
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Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...
I, [ name ], of [ address ], solemnly and sincerely state that: [ Matters to be verified, set out in numbered paragraphs ] I make this solemn statement in good conscience, believing it to be true, and pursuant to the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835. DECLARED at [ details ] this [ day ] day of [ month and year ] Before me ................................................................................ [ signature of the person before whom the declaration is made ] A [ commissioner for oaths OR [ solicitor OR [ insert other qualification ] ] authorised to administer oaths ]...
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