Employment law brief: 24 July 2014

In a month which saw newsworthy employment law innovations on the legislative front relating to the extension of flexible working requests to any employee with six months’ service (not just those caring for the young) and planned moves to ban exclusivity clauses in nil-hours contracts, the case law selected here reflects a rather standard issue in employment law, namely the interaction between the major statutory rights and their common law bases. They cover the law on penalty clauses in employment contracts, affirmation of contract by the employee in the face of employer repudiation, how final warnings operate when there has been a lapse in the timing and finally how the common law defence of illegality applies where the allegation is one of harassment.

Penalty clause or liquidated damage clause?

In Li v First Marine Solutions Ltd UKEAT/0045/13, a question arose as to whether a clause in the departing employee’s contract constituted an enforceable liquidated damages clause or an unenforceable penalty clause. The matter