In Hong Kong, some companies located in comparatively less accessible areas provide shuttle bus services for employees to travel to and from the workplace. This, of course, raises issues of liability and entitlement. More specifically, in the unfortunate event of a member of staff being injured while travelling on the company shuttle, he or she is entitled to make a claim under the Employees' Compensation Ordinance (ECO) ...
On July 17, 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a unanimous judgment setting aside the ruling by the Quebec Court of Appeal and affirming that the employer had fulfilled its duty to accommodate in the case of Hydro-Québec v. Syndicat des employé-e-s de techniques professionnelles et de bureau d’Hydro-Québec, section locale 2000 (SCFP-FTQ). In this judgment, the Court essentially dealt with two aspects ...
The decision in KERRY - August 7, 2009 (1) In this decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed, inter alia, that the company: May oblige the pension fund to pay the Plan expenses, that is the expenses associated with the employment of actuaries, accountants, counsel and other service providers required for the administration of the Plan; May combine the defined benefit (“DB”) and the defined c
Currently, employers can lawfully require employees to retire at 65 (the so-called default retirement age) as long as they follow the correct procedure. This has come under increasing criticism, and is currently the subject of a legal challenge by the charity Heyday (part of Age Concern). Whatever the outcome of the Heyday challenge, the Government had previously said it would review the default retirement age in 2011 to see if it was still needed ...
On August 7, 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada released its much anticipated decision of Nolan v. Kerry (Canada) Inc., a decision that concerns the ability of a plan sponsor to charge pension plan administrative expenses to the pension fund and the ability of a sponsor to use the actuarial surplus in the defined benefit portion of a pension plan to fund a contribution holiday in respect of the defined contribution portion of the plan ...
A number of laws and regulations have been promulgated in the past few years to introduce a series of changes to the existing PRC Labour Law, among which the key legislations are the PRC Labour Contract Law effective on 1 January 2008 and its detailed implementing regulations effective on 18 September 2008 ("Laws") ...
The House of Lords has today given its long awaited judgement in the Stringer case (previously known as Ainsworth). The House of Lords allowed the employees' appeal, overturning the Court of Appeal's earlier decision and substituting the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal ...
The Labour Market Opinion (LMO) program of Service Canada has recently changed: extension applications for LMOs are no longer permitted. Instead, each request to continue to employ a foreign worker will be treated as a new LMO request and will need to be supported by evidence of updated recruitment activity ...
Robertson v. West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., 2009 BCSC 602 Employee not constructively dismissed when employer’s unilateral reduction in his remuneration was small and he waited too long to complain about changes to his duties. Robertson was employed by West Fraser Timber (“WFT”) and its predecessor Weldwood for twenty-nine years ...
A lot hinged on the answer to the following question for thousands of businesses and organisations across the UK. When is equipment used at work not work equipment for the purposes of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998? It was put before the House of Lords at a hearing on 4 February 2009, exactly one year after the same question was considered by the Court of Appeal ...
How far do you have to go in carrying out risk assessments when the risks to your employees arise from activities conducted off your premises? It is a question that has always troubled health and safety advisors. The recent decision of the House of Lords in Smith (Jean) v Northamptonshire County Council, 2009 has helped to define the boundaries. In this case a care worker employed by the council was injured at a client's home ...
In early 2008, 'green computing' and the idea that companies were going to need to implement new measures to improve their green credentials was one of the hot topics in IT. You might have been forgiven for thinking that environmental concern would be among the first casualties of the credit crunch and the resulting recession ...
Virtually every business has some sort of website or presence on the internet, and it is often an integral part of the business. At the same time, many organisations use bespoke or customised software internally on a day-to-day basis, and undoubtedly attribute significant value to these assets, not least because the development of them probably required a significant investment via a third party developer providing the software ...
The High Court has held that in certain circumstances, an employee has the right to be represented by a lawyer at internal disciplinary hearings. The Employment Relations Act 1999 gives employees a statutory right to be accompanied only by a work colleague or union official at disciplinary and grievance hearings. The good practice recommendations in the new ACAS Code on Disciplinary and Grievance in the Workplace reflect this ...
On 6 April 2009 the Mandatory Dismissal and Disciplinary Procedures and Grievance Procedures (the statutory procedures) will be Repealed when Relevant Provisions of the Employment Act 2008 Come Into Force. It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most eagerly awaited changes to employment law for many years, and it is all but impossible to find anyone who doesn't view this as a positive development ...
Software is part of the day-to-day fabric for most companies. And almost everyone who uses it does so with little or no thought about what happens should it fail, or if it is no longer available. However, the prudent software buyer will consider how to protect against failure of critical or bespoke software, which is where escrow may come in. Be warned, though ...
The shifting of the burden of proof is an issue of great concern for suppliers when involved with litigation over product liability ...
I. IntroductionIt has been over 4 years since the Constitutional Court’s ruling on 26 October 2004 which declared that Article 158 and other relevant articles of the Manpower Law in relation to serious misconduct were against the Indonesia Constitution and therefore were not legally binding. The legal effect of the ruling was that an employer cannot immediately terminate an employee for serious misconduct ...
With the credit crunch likely to affect every aspect of the global economy, the prospect of declining revenue threatens to erode the profitability of many businesses. So the challenge is to preserve cash and cut costs. But how does this affect IT? Cutting back on IT projects is not necessarily an option. Software is the engine of the modern enterprise. Indeed, for many organisations it is their primary source of competitive advantage ...
In the current economic downturn it seems that industrial relations are once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Recent "wildcat" strikes over the use of foreign labour suggest a trend towards more militant attitudes within the workforce and the possibility of greater industrial unrest. The UK's labour laws are very complex ...
What is spamdexing? The Internet contains a lot of information. In 2002, the total number of web pages was estimated at 2.024 million; by 2005 this estimate had risen to 11.5 billion2. The ever- increasing amount of information found on the Internet also has disadvantages. In this jungle of information, it is getting harder and harder to see the wood for the trees ...
GENERAL 1. How can the government’s attitude and approach to internet issues best be described? The attitude of the Belgian government can be described as positive and their approach is proactive. In 2003, the Belgian authorities announced the introduction of ‘e-government’. The most important initiatives were the introduction of electronic identity cards (e-ID) for all Belgian citizens over 12, and the federal government’s information web-portal ...
While they are an integral part of most businesses - often with a primary function of delivering cost savings and efficiencies - they must be kept up-to-date to ensure they achieve those aims. So now is a good time to undertake an IT systems review, and look at consolidation and streamlining. Changes to business structures, acquisitions and a system's age are other triggers for an IT stock take ...
On June 2, 2008, following the hearing of six cases (1) at the same time, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that section 114 of the Labour Code grants exclusive jurisdiction to the Commission des relations du travail to hear complaints made under section 124 of the Act respecting Labour Standards ...
The Act to protect persons with regard to activities involving firearms and amending the Act respecting safety in sports(1) was assented to on December 13, 2007(2) and came into force on September 1, 2008. This Act was passed in the wake of the tragic events that occurred at Dawson College in September 2006, when a young 18-year old woman named Anastasia De Sousa lost her life in a shooting incident, hence its name, the “Anastasia Act” ...
