The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that an employer had been entitled to dismiss an engineer who used the company’s email system to communicate with his family. However, businesses should not see that as a green light for casual monitoring of staff emails. The case involved a Romanian company that set up
The number of people challenging what they consider to be unfair wills has risen by 20% over the last 10 years. There is also a growing tendency for people to consider that they are entitled to inherit their parents’ wealth, even if their parents want to leave some or all of their money to charities,
Ministers have urged employers to start preparing now for the National Living Wage (NLW), which comes into effect on 1 April this year. Research carried out on behalf of the government suggests that 93% of businesses support the move but many haven’t yet started to prepare. They’re being urged to follow four simple steps. •
Thousands of divorce settlements may have to be recalculated due to an error on a form on the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) website. The error involves Form E, which is shown on the website and is used to record the financial details of divorcing couples including their assets and liabilities. It’s been discovered that the
A court has refused to return an abducted child to his mother even though he was taken illegally by his father. The court accepted that it was against the boy’s interests to be sent back to his mother and that he had made it clear that he did not want to live with her because
An 83-year-old shop assistant who was sacked for leaving his till open while he dealt with a customer has won his claim of unfair dismissal. Ivor Smith had worked for B&Q in Glasgow for 12 years. In August 2014, a customer asked him for change of £200 in coins. He left his till open for
A woman’s second will in which she declared that she wanted to leave most of her estate to a close friend has been declared invalid because it wasn’t properly executed. It means that a number of charities will now inherit even though it’s unlikely that she wanted her money to pass to them. The case
What is mediation? When couples separate, emotions can often hinder difficult issues being discussed. Mediation is a process that is designed to help people reach an early agreement, with the minimum of cost, delay and confrontation. It can ease the pain of a family breakdown or separation, encourages people to be open and discuss
The government has introduced a series of new measures to help more people buy their first home. One of the main changes will reduce the restrictions on who can buy a home through shared ownership. Shared ownership is a scheme that allows people to move into a home by simply buying a share of it
A court has refused to return an abducted child to his mother even though he was taken illegally by his father. The court accepted that it was against the boy’s interests to be sent back to his mother and that he had made it clear that he did not want to live with her because