A summary of the decision in Allay (UK) Limited v S Gehlen and a reminder to employers to keep equal opportunities training up to date to be able to rely on the all reasonable steps defence under s 109 (4) of the Equality Act 2010. It is common for employers to provide employees with equal opportunities training, to underpin workplace culture as well as to prevent discrimination from taking place. A recent case, however, provides a salutary reminder to keep such training up to date ...
The recent dynamic growth of virtual currencies presents the increasingly realistic chance of creation of an entirely new model of money and payment. Innovations allowing payments to be made at lightning speed, across state borders and outside of official payment systems, are appearing before our very eyes. Such payments are made without the involvement of banks or intermediaries, and often anonymously. This is a revolution not only for traditional payment systems, but also for the law ...
This Article was originally published in Issue 7.5 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. Companies around the globe are having to make urgent decisions to keep their employees safe and ensure business continuity in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to fulfil these goals, companies need to find the right balance between providing a safe working environment and respecting their employees’ privacy, which can prove to be quite difficult in practice ...
According to Panamanian law, all employees must have an employment contract with some mandatory content which cannot be replaced by a job offer. Salary and working hours, must be agreed in this employment contract. The salary could be paid by month, fortnight, week, day or hour, but the practice is to negotiate a monthly salary, which must be at least equal to the minimum wage established by law ...
Employers nationwide are grappling with the new normal to balance how, where, and when their employees will work with the interests of employee health and safety and ever-tightening government mandates to self-quarantine. Below are some FLSA reminders and typical issues we are fielding from clients across many industries. Some of my employees are self-quarantined and working from home ...
Solicitor and commercial specialist Ross Woodham takes a technical and commercial look at Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), as it grows in popularity. VoIP has existed since the early 1980’s, but was only given serious commercial attention in the late 1990’s, since when the use of VoIP-based technology has grown steadily ...
Internet telephones are set to take the global communications industry by storm. Big names like Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo! and eBay are piling into the market and former state-run telecoms providers like BT are also investing. The technology was first developed by the US Defense Department as part of a research project on interconnection in the 1970s. But until recently only techno-geeks have had the interest and ability to make any use of it. But times have changed ...
There are so many things to celebrate following the news announcement earlier this week that GWR had purchased Vivarail’s assets following it having sadly entered into administration at the end of last year. Naturally the saving of a number of jobs is great to hear but in addition the protection of the highly innovative technology which will ultimately help to support the introduction of battery powered trains onto our network has to be a good thing ...
British businesses have long relied on temporary labour from the European Union to service short or medium-term projects. From an immigration perspective, prior to Brexit this relationship used to be frictionless. There was no red tape and no need to worry about what was or was not permitted under the UK’s immigration rules and policies. People arrived, people worked, people left and businesses were happy ...
On September 9, 2015, the Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced a transformation of the way the Department of State’s visa bulletin functions. This change will allow many individuals who have been waiting in visa backlogs to file green card applications before an actual green card is available ...
In October 2022, the Virginia Supreme Court decided the case of Hawkins v. Town of South Hill (view the opinion here), which fundamentally alters 40 years of precedent in the Commonwealth concerning what is considered confidential and not subject to production in response to a Virginia Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request. Earlier this month, the Circuit Court issued its decision on remand in light of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision in Hawkins ...
Yesterday, Virginia approved temporary emergency workplace safety standards related to COVID-19, making it the first state in the nation to do so. While final language has yet to be approved, the standards are expected to go into effect in late July and will remain in effect for six months unless extended pursuant to state law. A current draft of the regulations is available here ...
Virginia is now the first state in the nation to enact mandatory occupational safety standards regarding COVID-19. The Virginia Department of Labor and Industry’s health and safety board voted 9-2 on July 15 to adopt an “Emergency Temporary Standard” which requires employers to implement measures to protect employees from COVID-19 ...
On March 2, 2021, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed the Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA or law) into law. This makes Virginia the second state, behind California, to adopt a comprehensive consumer data privacy law. Like the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) and EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the CDPA creates a number of privacy obligations for businesses and gives Virginia consumers more control over their personal data. The CDPA takes effect on Jan ...
The recruitment of a large number of employees who immediately before had worked for a competitor was in contravention of the Danish Marketing Practices Act. This was established by a judgment of the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court on 7 January 2014 ...
On 30 December 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued Decree No. 152/2020/ND-CP (“Decree 152”) which will take effect on 15 February 2021 and replace Decree No. 11/2016/ND-CP of the Government of Vietnam dated 3 February 2016 (“Decree 11”), Decree No. 75/2014/ND-CP of the Government of Vietnam dated 28 July 2014 (“Decree 75”) and its corresponding amendments and supplemental decrees ...
The below is a generic list of the key licenses, permits, declarations generally needed by a foreign investor (alone or in JV) to set up and operate a data center in Vietnam. This is not meant to address any specific situation and does not constitute a legal advice ...
The Vietnamese Government issued the first-ever comprehensive legal framework on personal data for the country in the form of Decree No. 13/2023/ND-CP dated 17 April 2023, on personal data protection (“DPD”). The DPD, which will take effect from 1 July 2023, applies to agencies, organizations and individuals that are involved in the collection and processing of personal data ...
In light of the continuing Covid-19 outbreak in Vietnam and various regulations issued by the Government and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (“MOLISA”), some key considerations remain with respect to employee entitlements that employers must address and make due preparations for, as outlined below: 1 ...
