North West Employment Law - Specialist Employment Solicitors

Compromise agreements are a popular way of terminating employment. Invariably there are benefits to both parties.

In most cases the main benefit to the employee is money. It is also common for the employee to be given an agreed albeit brief reference. Sometimes there are other benefits too.

Unsurprisingly employers expect something in return. The thing which is always given up by the employee is the right to take the employer to an employment tribunal. It is this which usually tempts the employer to pay the cost of the agreement and this which the employee is ‘compromising’ by entering into the agreement. It is something of a benefit to employees too because the delay, cost and uncertainty of an employment tribunal claim is avoided.

As the years have gone by employers have typically asked more and more from employees in return for a payment. Nowadays a leaving employee amongst other things can expect to be asked to agree to complete confidentiality, to make no derogatory statements about the employer, not to compete with the employer and even not to speak to former colleagues.

You might think that agreements once paid are put in the back of a drawer to be forgotten and this may well be so. But it is dangerous to assume that will always be the case.

Agreements will almost always contain a clause requiring the employee to repay their money if they break any of the promises made in the agreement. Some of the promises might easily be broken by the unwary.

Imagine that you have unexpectedly left RBS after many years loyal service. You meet an acquaintance who says; ‘Hello Fred Goodwin- how come you’re not at the bank any more?’. What do you say? ‘I left by agreement’- that could breach a common requirement to keep the existence of the agreement confidential.

In one case the ex-employee had said ‘I haven’t been sacked’. The judge thought that might have been enough to break the agreement- as it turned out the ex-employee had said far more so no decision needed to be made on that point. That ex-employee ended up getting nothing and having to pay the other side’s costs for trying.

The advice is obvious- when it comes to compromise agreements if you want to keep your money keep your promises too.

For more information on compromise agreements visit www.nwelaw.co.uk/compromise agreements.

Employers have been advised by the Law Society to be wary of using information on websites to vet job candidates. But it cuts both ways.

Our advice to clients is to be careful what they say about their employer and colleagues- particularly if they have a problem at work or if they have lost their job and are either making a claim or are hoping to reach an agreement. That general advice is especially important in electronic media such as Facebook or Twitter and it goes for e-mails too.

Many people use electronic media as a modern form of gossip and put as much thought into what they write as what they say (not much?). There are two obvious but important differences between what is written in cyberspace and what is said- firstly you cannot be sure who will read what you write, secondly what you write can be copied and kept to use against you later. It will be no use then to deny that you said anything or claim that you were misquoted and taken out of context.

One client put his case in serious jeopardy by comments he made on Facebook about his employer whilst making a discrimination claim.

Another client was dismissed for gross misconduct because of comments she made in an e-mail during her notice period. The e-mail was intended to be light hearted and amusing but the employer did not see it that way. They regarded the e-mail as a gross breach of the clients duty and marched her off the premises. That way the employer thought they could avoid making a redundancy payment and save a sizeable chunk of notice pay.

No matter how witty you are and how amusing your comments you can be sure your employer will not see the joke. Especially if it suits them not to. So it is best to say nothing if you do not want your employer to have the last laugh.

Well not really but the Court of Appeal (Ladele –v- London Borough of Islington) did decide that for a Council to threaten to dismiss a registrar for refusing on religious grounds to carry out civil partnership services was justified.

To put it another way religious discrimination ‘was justified by  the Council’s desire to provide its services in a non- discriminatory way’.  So discrimination on religious grounds is OK to avoid discrimination against same sex couples. Sounds like that’s gay laws trumping religious laws. Why isn’t it?

Because we need to decide whether the result would be reversed if the situation was reversed.  Consider a gay doctor who refused to treat a patient known for their viscerally anti gay religious views- would that doctor’s employer be justified in threatening dismissal? We will not know for sure until it happens but I think it is a safe bet that following Ladele that an employment  tribunal will decide that the employer has a duty to extend its services to all comers. That means not permitting its staff to make such choices.

And in other news… the government has recently announced that because of a fall in the RPI the maximum compensatory award which an employment  tribunal can make is reduced from £66200 to £65300 with effect from 1st February 2010