Legal Practice Notes

This Practice Note explains how the business and affairs of a partnership are handled after a solvent general dissolution (not a technical dissolution). It does not consider insolvency or how matters are managed when the firm is insolvent. For guidance on partnership insolvency, see: General partnerships and insolvency—overview. The Note addresses partnerships formed under the Partnership Act 1890 ( PA 1890) and governed by English law, excluding limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships and partnerships governed by Scottish law. A partnership may come to an end by: dissolution (see Practice Note: Ending a partnership—what is dissolution?) insolvency (see: General partnerships and insolvency—overview) For other routes to dissolution, see the Practice Notes: Ending a partnership—dissolution by the court and Ending a partnership—dissolution otherwise than by the court. Consequences of a general dissolution On a general dissolution, each partner is entitled, as against the other partners and all...

Right to ‘disconnect’ This Practice Note explores the concept of the right to ‘disconnect’ (or to ‘switch off’), which means workers are not required to carry out work-related activities beyond their normal contracted hours, nor to respond during those times. The nature and extent of any right to disconnect varies across jurisdictions and, although it could relate to any form of work task, it most commonly concerns staff receiving electronic communications (for example, emails and telephone calls) outside their usual working hours. In the last decade, the share of workers performing their duties flexibly and remotely has grown substantially, particularly after the Covid pandemic, which led many people to move to remote working for the first time. Although this flexibility has benefited many, the fading line between workplace and home has made it harder for individuals to properly ‘switch off’ from their work. The Acas guide on...

This Practice Note provides the complete text of the Employment Appeal Tribunal Practice Direction 2024, which took effect on 1 February 2025. 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 What does the Employment Appeal Tribunal do? The Employment Appeal Tribunal (“ EAT”) hears appeals against decisions of Employment Tribunals in England, Wales and Scotland. Distinct provisions govern national security appeals: see Section 14. The EAT also has further functions: see Sections 15 and 16. 1.2 What appeals does this Practice Direction apply to? This Practice Direction applies to all appeals started on or after 1 February 2025; and to appeals begun before that date in respect of steps occurring on or after it. It applies in England, Wales and Scotland. It amends and replaces the EAT Practice Direction 2023. 1.3 What is this Practice Direction for? This Practice Direction describes the EAT’s procedures. It sets out procedural...

This Practice Note considers the measures employment tribunals and both parties should adopt to identify vulnerable parties and witnesses, where appropriate, and to fully secure their participation in employment tribunal proceedings. The Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 ( ET Rules 2024), SI 2024/1155, do not expressly mention vulnerable parties or their treatment in the employment tribunals. Nevertheless, the overriding objective in the ET Rules 2024, SI 2024/1155, r 3 requires employment tribunals to determine cases fairly and justly, which includes, so far as practicable, ensuring all parties are on an equal footing. It is therefore evident that vulnerable parties in employment proceedings, including witnesses, will often need assistance to be put on that footing. How this can be achieved is addressed in the guidance set out immediately below. For more information: on case management generally, see the Practice Note: Employment tribunal case...

The FCA has, in recent years, acknowledged that weak culture — notably any acceptance of non-financial misconduct — frequently underpins serious conduct breaches across financial services. Consequently, the regulator has sharpened its oversight of non-financial misconduct when supervising firms and individuals. September 2023 saw consultation CP23/20, outlining measures to advance diversity and inclusion and proposing clarifications on how its rules apply to non-financial misconduct. In July 2025, the FCA issued the resulting policy statement alongside CP25/18, detailing its stance on non-financial misconduct. As part of that package, the Code of Conduct ( COCON) sourcebook was revised to introduce new non-financial misconduct rules for the sector. The scope of COCON was broadened to bring banks and non-banks into alignment on non-financial misconduct, confirming that for non-banks the rules capture serious bullying, harassment, violence and comparable behaviour directed at a colleague — defined to include fellow...

This Practice Note explores workers’ entitlements when they undergo fertility treatment, covering the range of treatments on offer (such as in vitro fertilisation ( IVF), intrauterine insemination ( IUI), medication and surgical options), how employers should handle time-off requests, when the protected period begins for pregnancy-related rights, safeguards against discrimination, considerations for introducing a workplace policy, and the most up-to-date guidance and current case law. It is crucial for employers to recognise the issues that arise for employees going through fertility treatment. The World Health Organisation reports that one in six people globally experience infertility. Fertility Network UK estimates that 3.5 million people in the UK face fertility challenges and recent surveys indicate that staff feel workplace support is insufficient. For example: The 2023 Workplace Infertility Stigma Survey by Fertility Family found three in four respondents felt their employer did not foster an open...

This Practice Note provides links to the online edition of Juliet Carp’s Drafting Employment Documents for Expatriates (2nd edition, 17 May 2017). The text offers a broad overview of preparing employment documentation for overseas postings or expatriate roles, setting out the principal drafting stages. It also signposts where specialist input is commonly required on tax, social security, benefit arrangements, business registration and immigration, helping the assignment manager (often an employment lawyer) to determine business needs. The main parts of this Practice Note align with the book’s chapters, and tables within each section outline the chapter contents and include links to the relevant online material... Introduction What’s new — Drafting Employment Documents for Expatriates, Chapter 1. Para 1.1 Purpose and scope of this book — Drafting Employment Documents for Expatriates, Chapter 1. Para 1.4 Using this book — Drafting...

FORTHCOMING CHANGES : The Employment Rights Act 2025 ( ERA 2025) revises sections 27A and 27B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 ( ERA 1996), allowing regulations to be made under new or amended provisions within ERA 1996. For this purpose, certain changes to ERA 1996, ss 27A and 27B took effect on 6 January 2026 (see: Who is protected, below). Other measures will commence later (see Practice Note: Employment Rights Act 2025—tracker). This Practice Note will be updated as further details emerge. It reviews protections for workers and employees on zero hours contracts and those on lower pay, covering: exclusivity clauses that are not enforceable protection from detriment protection from unfair dismissal For general guidance on zero hours workers, see Practice Note: Zero hours contracts. Who is protected Employees or workers engaged on zero hours contracts are protected under section 27A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 ( ERA 1996) and the...

This Practice Note outlines the practical issues that can follow receipt of a whistleblower report from the viewpoint of the corporate entity receiving it (including limited companies, partnerships and LLPs). For guidance aimed at those representing whistleblowers, see Practice Note: Representing whistleblowers in internal criminal investigations. Reports may cover a broad range of suspected wrongdoing, from breaches of internal policy and employment matters such as discrimination, to allegations of serious criminality. The focus here is the latter, though some principles have wider relevance... Whistleblowing policy Benefits of implementing a whistleblowing policy While whistleblowing legislation does not generally require companies to maintain a whistleblowing policy (with specific rules applying to listed companies and those in the financial services sector), creating and publicising clear, robust policies and procedures for dealing with whistleblowing is regarded as best practice and delivers several benefits: It signals a...

This Practice Note reviews Directive ( EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council, dated 23 October 2019, on safeguarding persons who disclose breaches of Union law (the Whistleblowing Directive). It lays down rules and procedures to shield ‘whistleblowers’—people who, in a work-related setting, report information on violations of EU law in key policy fields—and, in defined circumstances, certain associated third parties. Member States had to transpose Directive ( EU) 2019/1937 into domestic law by 17 December 2021. Although implementation at national level began slowly, every Member State has now adopted at least one implementing measure. For further details, see: National implementation, below. The Directive is not part of retained EU law after IP completion day (31 December 2020) and therefore has no application in the UK. In October 2019, the UK government confirmed it would not take steps to transpose the...

This Practice Note outlines the available resources concerning safeguards and liabilities arising from acts or failures to act that constitute sexual orientation discrimination, or other forms of prohibited conduct linked to sexual orientation. The detail here is intentionally limited, as the principal aim is to point subscribers towards comprehensive materials contained in additional Practice Notes that explore each element in depth. Consequently, treat this Practice Note as an entry point for research; full coverage is provided only in the places signposted below. Its role is to point you forward, not to replace the comprehensive Practice Notes that address each strand of the topic at length, and the links below are where complete information is intended to be consulted and used. The characteristics protected The Equality Act 2010 ( Eq A 2010) affords protection against discrimination and other prohibited conduct connected to particular listed...

ARCHIVED: This archived Practice Note distils a selection of employment cases on coronavirus ( COVID-19) highlighted by the Lexis+® UK Employment team, aiming to provide a snapshot of the kinds of disputes reaching tribunals and the stance being taken both there and on appeal. It is not a complete inventory of all significant decisions. Employment tribunal judgments sit at first instance and do not bind other tribunals. As tribunals decide matters by reference to the pandemic conditions and guidance in force at the relevant time, cases with comparable facts to those outlined below could now be determined differently. For matters that are appealed, see Practice Note: Case tracker— Employment. The legal context For general information on employer issues arising from coronavirus, see Practice Notes: Health and safety—protection from detriment and dismissal Living with coronavirus ( COVID-19) in the workplace from 24 February 2022 [...

This Practice Note outlines the Prudential Regulation Authority ( PRA)’s rules on pay awarded by banks, building societies and systemically important investment firms to their staff, and traces how those rules developed from the legislation and provisions that transposed the EU Capital Requirements Directive 2013/36/ EU ( CRD IV) requirements. It also covers measures brought in by UK legislators and regulators after the UK left the EU in 2020, alongside the amendments set out in the joint PRA and Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) policy statements PRA PS21/25 and FCA PS25/15 on the reform of the remuneration regime. Remuneration requirements under CRD IV and EU CRR Following the financial crisis, the Financial Stability Board ( FSB) and several national regulators assessed the governance and configuration of remuneration across the financial services industry. Their principal conclusions were that: firms (and supervisors) had not recognised how...

Practice Note More and more employers are striving to strengthen diversity and equality within their organisations. This Practice Note outlines several voluntary charters and programmes that employers may join to demonstrate and advance their pledge to foster diversity and equality—and to back colleagues with particular protected characteristics—across their workplaces. It includes the Race at Work Charter, Change the Race Ratio, the Disability Confident Scheme, the Mindful Employer Charter, the Mindful Business Charter, the Stonewall Proud Employers Programme, the Women in Finance Charter and the Dying to Work Charter. The motivation to enhance workplace diversity and equality can arise from a range of factors, such as: recognising the significant commercial gains of a diverse workforce and recruiting from the broadest possible talent pool a conviction that taking such steps is the ethically right course lifting morale by ensuring staff feel valued, understood and...

This tracker considers the case law on vicarious liability. These decisions show how the courts have treated this developing area. They are arranged chronologically to trace the doctrine’s growth. When liability is in issue, a claimant usually seeks to prove fault by a named defendant (in workplace matters, often the employer). Sometimes an alternative route exists—the employer’s vicarious liability for the acts or omissions of its employee or agent. It is called vicarious because the breach of duty is the employee’s. The employer’s liability is often described as strict; it arises without proof of any breach by the employer. As Gross LJ noted in Allen v Chief Constable of the Hampshire Constabulary, to succeed against a defendant on vicarious liability for an employee’s negligence, the claimant must meet a two-stage test: there must be a relationship between the employer and the tortfeasor...

This Practice Note provides an introduction to the data protection implications of establishing a global corporate whistleblowing scheme. To deliver effective corporate governance, companies need dependable ways to spot and remedy unlawful or unethical behaviour within their organisations. One means of meeting this aim is to set up internal whistleblowing arrangements, giving staff a trusted, confidential route to raise concerns about misconduct. Worldwide, more national laws are obliging businesses to put in place internal financial control procedures—often realised through whistleblowing frameworks. The US sets the pace with rigorous expectations for internal reporting and investigation of suspected wrongdoing under the Sarbanes- Oxley Act 2002 ( SOX). For a US‑regulated multinational, designing a uniform corporate whistleblowing programme across every territory in which it trades can be challenging. In Europe, organisations must also reconcile their governance goals with protecting the privacy rights of individuals named through the...

Public sector equality duty ( PSED) The public sector equality duty ( PSED), as articulated in Part 11 of the Equality Act 2010 ( Eq A 2010), consists of a general equality duty—the core obligation—supported by specific duties intended to aid delivery of the general duty. With Scotland as the focus in particular, this Practice Note explores how the specific duties oblige public bodies to conduct a range of assessments and to report on assorted information. It sets out, in practice, how those specific duties encourage transparency and accountability to service users for decisions, ensuring equality objectives remain prominent in the minds of decision-makers. It should be borne in mind that the specific duties do not supplant the general PSED—public bodies subject to the specific duties must still also adhere to the PSED. Indeed, within the Scottish regime, the intention is for the...

Practice Note This Practice Note outlines the legal and practical issues that arise when modifying an employee’s terms and conditions of employment. It is highly likely that an employer will, at some point in the employment relationship, wish to amend the terms and conditions on which any particular employee, or any group of employees, is engaged......

Staff are safeguarded from being dismissed, or treated to their disadvantage, where the reason relates to ordinary adoption leave ( OAL) or additional adoption leave ( AAL). Protection from detriment An employee has the right not to suffer a detriment arising from any act, or intentional omission, by their employer where this occurs because: they took, or tried to take, OAL or AAL the employer believed they were likely to take OAL or AAL they did not return at the end of AAL and the employer: failed to tell them the date AAL ended (see Practice Note: Adoption leave— Giving notice and evidential requirements), causing the employee reasonably to believe their AAL was still ongoing, or gave fewer than 28 days' notice of the date AAL would finish, and it was not...

Where there is a business transfer or service provision change amounting to a relevant transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings ( Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 ( TUPE 2006), SI 2006/246, the transferor and the transferee have certain obligations to inform and consult This Practice Note explores the obligations to inform and consult under TUPE 2006, setting out what amounts to a relevant transfer, who must carry out the duties (transferor and transferee), and who must be engaged in the process... Affected employees and any proposed measures Appropriate representatives, including trade union and employee representatives, and arranging elections The rights of appropriate representatives Variations for small businesses, small transfers and TUPE microbusinesses The duty to inform and the duty to consult Pre-transfer collective consultation about post-transfer dismissals under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (...