Drawing the right lines

The New Year has started as it doubtless means to go on, ie on the manic side of frantic. We have had the passage of the Agency Worker Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/93), even though they are not due to come into force until October 2011, and also the sudden enactment (due to a temporary ascendance in the firmament of planet Harman over planet Mandleson) of the provisions on additional paternity leave and pay in the Work and Families Act 2006 ss 3 to 10 (brought into force on 6 April 2010 by SI 2010/128).

The case law considered here is equally important. We have had a Court of Appeal case with a welcome clarification of the position of contract terms incorporating collective agreements on a TUPE transfer (where hitherto we seemed to have a conflict between domestic authority and a European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision), a decision of the EAT holding that in certain circumstances the apparently inalienable right to statutory