News & Events
News & Events
We are delighted to welcome Edward Morgan QC to our business team. Ed joins us with a well-established practice focused on employment law, commercial law, disciplinary and regulatory work. He is also an accredited Mediator and Arbitrator. Ed studied in Northern England (LLB and LLM) and Belgium (JCL, PhD and JCD). He was called to the Bar of England & Wales in 1989 and the Bar of Northern Ireland in 2000. He was appointed silk in 2021. His judicial appointments include fee-paid Employment Judge and Assistant Coroner. Ed’s expertise is widely recognised; he regularly writes case reviews for LexisNexis and professional book reviews for specialist journals, including the Ecclesiastical Law Journal and the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and…
Commercial, News, Employment 27 Apr, 2022
Representing the Respondent operators of the Mytaxi app (now called Free Now), Andrew Short QC and Peter Linstead have successfully opposed the Claimant’s appeal to the EAT of a decision that a London Hackney carriage driver using the taxi app was not a ‘worker’ when using the app to source and transport passengers. Introduction In a decision handed down on 18 January 2022 in Christopher Johnson v Transopco UK Ltd [2022] EAT 6, the EAT upheld the decision of the employment tribunal, where Peter Linstead appeared unled for Transopco, that although the driver had an obligation of personal service, the operator was a ‘client or customer’ of the driver’s business for the purposes of s.230(3) of the Employment Rights Act…
News, Employment 24 Jan, 2022
We are delighted to announce that Naomi Cunningham has been named by The Lawyer as a ‘Hot 100 Lawyer’ for 2022. Every year, The Lawyer compiles a list of lawyers that they feel have made an impact on the legal world and have excelled in their field. Their ‘Hot 100’ rates on excellence and relevance. It covers “an incredibly diverse mix of legal professionals; scrappers from the rough and tumble of criminal law; sophisticated corporate dealmakers; intellectuals and silver-tongued advocates from barristers’ profession; the in-house counsel with the ear of their CEOs; associates rising to greatness; and even the occasional professional with no legal qualifications at all who is nevertheless showing the industry how to better itself. But whatever…
News, Employment 17 Jan, 2022
We are delighted to announce that Andrew Short QC has been awarded Employment Silk of The Year at the Chambers Bar Awards 2021. The 2021 Chambers Bar Awards were back in person this year and the legal fraternity were out in force to celebrate the best in the business. The evening was held at Old Billingsgate on 18th November and some of the Outer Temple team went along to catch up with colleagues and cheer for Andrew as the shortlist for the ‘Employment Silk of the Year’ category was announced on stage. To everyone’s delight, Andrew was announced as the winner and he can now add his ‘Employment Silk of the Year’ plaque to his trophy wall. Chambers & Partners…
News, Employment 19 Nov, 2021
We are delighted to announce that Andrew Short QC has been shortlisted for ‘Employment Silk of the Year’ at the Chambers & Partners UK Bar Awards 2021. Andrew Short QC continues to act in the biggest multi party cases. He is at the forefront of equal pay claims in the private sector (ASDA; Sainsbury’s; Next). His multi party and pensions knowledge has resulted in instructions on behalf of hundreds of judges and thousands of firefighters in successful discrimination challenges to public sector pension reform (McCloud; Sargeant). Andrew’s expertise and experience in pensions crossover employment claims and in equal pay litigation is unrivalled and his work is different from individual claims by employees against employers. Andrew’s cases are complex in terms…
News, Employment 27 Aug, 2021
The Court of Justice of the European Union gives important judgment in favour of several thousand female and male workers represented by Keith Bryant QC, Naomi Cunningham, Stephen Butler and Chloë Bell (instructed by Harcus Sinclair UK Limited, part of Harcus Parker) bringing equal pay claims against Tesco. This is a seminal judgment on the scope of equal pay protections to which workers in England and Wales must now be entitled in domestic courts and tribunals; Article 157 TFEU has direct effect in equal pay claims based on work of equal value. The claimants, represented by the team from Outer Temple Chambers, are all store-based employees or former employees of Tesco Stores Ltd. They claim that they are paid significantly less than the approximately 11,000 employees…
News, Employment 3 Jun, 2021
Naomi Cunningham has been awarded The Lawyer’s ‘Barrister of the Week’ in recognition of her role as part of the team acting for 35,000 claimants in an equal pay claim against ASDA at the Supreme Court earlier this month. The Lawyer, in their article, explored Naomi’s employment law career, starting over 20 years ago when Naomi thought that representing 42 low paid workers in a case against Cromwell Hospital was a formidable logistical challenge. Fast forward to today and Naomi is currently part of a team acting for 35,000 claimants in an equal pay claim against ASDA, most recently landing a noteworthy triumph in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Asda’s appeal and held that the Claimants (35,000…
News, Employment 13 Apr, 2021
In a judgment handed down this morning, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Asda’s appeal and held that the Claimants (35,000 predominantly female retail employees) can use male distribution employees as comparators for the purposes of an equal pay claim. Andrew Short QC, Naomi Cunningham and Paul Livingston were instructed by Leigh Day to appear on behalf of the Claimants. The claims are brought on the basis that retail employees are paid less than distribution employees despite doing work of equal value. Asda had argued that the distribution employees were not valid comparators as they and the retail employees worked at different locations and were not employed on “common terms” within the meaning of the legislation. This argument was previously rejected…
News, Employment 26 Mar, 2021
Naomi Cunningham was part of a legal team who, today, have won a High Court challenge against the Office for National Statistics regarding a question on sex and the issue of self-identification in the 2021 census. Campaign Group Fair Play for Women has won its campaign to have guidance from the Office for National Statistics about the “sex” question in the 2021 Census permanently withdrawn. Mr Justice Swift granted permission and interim relief in an urgent hearing in the Admin Court last week, and listed the case for an expedited full merits hearing on 18th March 2021. Jason Coppel QC and Tom Cross from 11KBW and Outer Temple Chambers’ Naomi Cunningham were instructed by Sinclairslaw for Fair Play…
News, Employment 17 Mar, 2021
On 29 March 2021 Peter Linstead has been invited by the DIFC Academy of Law to speak on the discrimination provisions within the DIFC Employment Law of 2019. This two hour webinar will provide a comprehensive overview of DIFC Discrimination Law. Peter Linstead was involved in aspects of the consultation on the new law. The presentation aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the provisions and how the DIFC courts might apply them; to consider the few existing DIFC discrimination decisions and those in other jurisdictions which assist in interpreting the law; and to focus on the interesting and topical issues, as well as explaining what the provisions mean. Booking the Webinar You may read more about the webinar and…
News, Employment 16 Mar, 2021
Andrew Short QC and Lydia Seymour, instructed by Walkers Solicitors, have successfully resisted an appeal in the EAT by various Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) who had argued that they should not be liable for age discrimination claims from firefighters on the basis that they had been “acting pursuant to an enactment”. The appeal was related to the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department & others v Sargeant [2019] EWCA Civ 2844; [2019] ICR 1489, in which Andrew and Lydia acted for over 6,000 firefighters who claimed that the decision to exclude them from their pension scheme in circumstances in which their older colleagues were allowed to remain in them, was age discrimination. Those claims were upheld…
News, Employment 16 Feb, 2021
Peter Linstead, a specialist in employment and commercial law from Outer Temple Chambers, has written a new handbook on Employee Competition; “Restraining Competition by Employees – A Practical Guide to Restrictive Covenants, Injunctions and Other Remedies”. “Restraining Competition by Employees – A Practical Guide to Restrictive Covenants, Injunctions and Other Remedies” is published by Law Brief Publishing. Click here for further information or to purchase a copy. The purpose of the book is to create an easily accessible, indexed guide to this area of law, which is often regarded as highly specialist, even within the employment law community. Whilst fully up to date and covering all areas of importance, it is designed to enable solicitors and barristers to gain knowledge…
Legal Blog & Publications, News, Employment, Employment 15 Feb, 2021
