Employment & Discrimination

Our employment & discrimination barristers are at the forefront of developments in various areas of employment law, including: equal pay, working time and holiday pay, disability discrimination and whistleblowing. A number of members are appointed to the Attorney Generals list of approved counsel and act for Government departments in employment matters.

• Andrew Short KC, Keith Bryant KC, Naomi Cunningham, Naomi Ling, Saul Margo, Paul Livingston and Stephen Butler are all involved in the mass claimant equal pay claims (tens of thousands of claimants) against ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Next Retail, Morrisons and Tesco. Claims that follow on from our involvement in equal pay claims in the public sector against Birmingham City Council and others.
• We have secured what is thought to be the highest award for Disability Discrimination, £4.7 million, for a claimant against the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland PLC v AB UKEAT/0266/18. Gerard McDermott KC and Will Young acted in both the Employment Tribunal and in the Employment Appeal Tribunal for AB.
• Our employment team are involved in each of the successful challenges to the public sector pension reforms brought by hundreds of Judges and thousands of Fire Fighters, Police Officers, Doctors, Prison Officers and MOD workers. See McCloud v Lord Chancellor; Sargeant v LFEPA [2018] EWCA Civ 2844.
• Members have have also been involved in two of the most important recent discrimination appeals in the Supreme Court:
  • Sarah Crowther KC acted for the successful Appellants in the Northern Ireland ‘gay cake’ case, Lee v Ashers Baking Company Limited & ors [2018] 3 WLR 1294
  • The first appellate case to consider the meaning of ‘unfavourable treatment’ in the Equality Act 2010, Williams v The Trustess of Swansea University Pension and Assurance Scheme & anr [2018] UKSC 65, was successfully resisted by Keith Bryant KC & Saul Margo.
• Alexander Line was recently instructed in J v K & Another [2019] EWCA Civ 5, in which he successfully represented the Claimant in the Court of Appeal. The decision was made to grant an extension of time to an Appellant whose notice of appeal and specified documents exceeded the email file size limit.
• Other important appellate decisions include Lofty v Hamis [2018] IRLR 512 EAT, a decision in which Andrew Allen KC was successful and one that clarified the definition of cancer for the purposes of disability discrimination.
• Our involvement in disputes in the High Court involves Public and Private sector parties. Such recent decisions have included Antuzis & Others v DJ Houghton Catching Services Ltd & others [2019] EWHC 843 (QB), a leading authority on the interaction between a Director’s personal liability and his/her duties under the Companies Act 2006, and Grainger v North East London NHS Foundation Trust [2017] I.R.L.R. 981 on the interpretation of NHS contracts.

Outer Temple Chambers continues to be a preferred port of call where specialist expertise in pensions or financial services law is required, or where large equal pay claims are pursued through the civil courts. We have unrivalled crossover expertise in key related areas, including; pensions, financial services, security vetting, partnership and regulatory law.

We prioritise commercial sensitivities in litigation and advisory work concerning business protection and employees rights, and provide advice and expertise in mediation, arbitration and other methods of alternative dispute resolution.