Problems arise when a spouse discovers that their other half has used Facebook to contact an ex or makes a new ‘friend’ which leads to an affair. Even innocent friendships on the site can raise suspicion and jealousy, leading to squabbles in a marriage.

Facebook information has been used as evidence in divorce proceedings. Increasingly, divorce petitions feature references to social networking sites and Facebook appears to be the main culprit. The site can be used to evidence unreasonable behaviour in divorce proceedings. This may be the case if postings of a spouse’s drunken antics are used to support allegations of an alcohol problem (which could constitute unreasonable behaviour).

Virtual sites can also lead to marriage failures. People may have ‘virtual affairs’ on sites such as Second Life. Virtual affairs cannot constitute adultery as grounds for divorce, but may be used to prove unreasonable behaviour.

Users should think carefully about what they put on Facebook as it may be used in evidence for divorce proceedings or indeed in other legal proceedings. It is probably best to limit, if not completely curtail, Facebook usage whilst going through a divorce.

Facebook can be used as a source of evidence in disputes over finances. For example, a party claiming poverty would have great difficulty in explaining pictures of themselves splashing the cash in an exotic destination.

Facebook can also be used in other matters, for example damaging photographic evidence of an individual using drugs, may be used in child custody and contact cases, or even in employment disciplinary cases.

At the Honley Law Practice, we provide legal advice on a range of issues including divorce, separation agreements, contact with children and financial issues. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Julian Taylor or Fozia Ahmad at our office.

The relevant areas are:

Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay, Maternity Allowance, Additional Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay.  All will be increased from £128.73 to £135.45 per week from April 2010 (subject to any amendments.)

The weekly lower earning limit applicable to national insurance contributions, below, which employees are not entitled to Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity Pay (but remain entitled to Maternity Allowance), Statutory Adoption Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay will all be increased from £102 to £107 per week from April 2010 (subject to any amendments).

Statutory Sick Pay will increase from £81.60 per week to £85.85 per week from April 2010 (subject to any amendments)

These proposals are expected to kick in from April of this year. We will report details of the amendments to the rates as and when these are published.

If you are an employer or employee who has any queries in relation to any issues relating to employment law please do not hesitate to contact us.

FOZIA AHMAD

The Honley Law Practice

At present, an employee with one year’s continuous employment has the right to claim unfair dismissal. From April 2012, an employee must have two years’ continuous employment to bring an unfair dismissal claim.

How does this change affect employers and employees?

Employees will be disgruntled to hear that they will need an extra year’s service before they can bring a claim for unfair dismissal. Injustices may arise if an employee is dismissed by the employer before accruing two year’s service. Unscrupulous employers could hire and retain staff for just short of a two year period and then terminate their employment. In cases where an individual has no redress other than an unfair dismissal claim, the change in the law may well work against employees.

While the increased qualifying period may well be welcomed by employers it should be noted that employees can still pursue discrimination claims. Further, they may still be able to pursue an unfair dismissal claim in certain circumstances where no qualifying period of service with the employer is needed. This includes whistle blowing and maternity related claims, amongst others. Such claims may be even more expensive for an employer to defend than the ordinary unfair dismissal claims.

If you are an employer or employee and have queries relating to this matter, contact us for further information.

FOZIA AHMAD
The Honley Law Practice

The Supreme Court agreed with the trial judge saying that, “if the parties don’t spell it out what they intend, the courts can do it for them”.

Relationship Breakdown

The parties bought in 1985 for £35,000. Having had children, they separated in 1993. Mr Kernott made no further contribution to either the property or the children, but then in 2007 agitated for the property to be sold at a time when it had risen in value to over £230,000. As you might expect, the parties could not agree on what they were each entitled to.

The lead judgment indicates that the presumption of equal ownership can be rebutted by evidence if it ceased to be the common intention of the parties: in which event, the courts can then rewrite the parties’ agreement or common intention along lines which the parties might never have expected or intended.

Pre-marriage Agreements

Given that one in six couples now cohabit (and the numbers are rising), it’s time to take stock if you are buying a property together or have just bought, in which case, have a written agreement as to who gets what, and what your obligations are. Consider what is to happen if you were to part, or pray for legislative reform, because the case is probably here to stay.

The Prudential’s pension trustees had for many years followed a policy of uplifting pensions for pensioner members of the scheme, so that the pensions maintained their real value based on the Retail Prices Index. According to the trust deed of the pension scheme, this power was discretionary.

The trustees changed the policy and no longer awarded the discretionary element of pension increases as before, but instead applied a 2.5 per cent ‘cap’ on pension uplifts.

This raised the question of whether, given that members of the scheme had become accustomed to the increases, the change in policy could be regarded as a breach of its implied obligation to them.

Despite the ‘very strong’ expectation of the scheme members, the Court ruled that there was no obligation to uplift pensions according to the prior policy.

The focus of the advice is on minimising the disruption to business activity. The principal points are that employers and employees should:

• keep in touch with each other – if you can’t get to work, try to get in touch with your employer to let them know. If your business has been damaged, contact your employees to discuss work arrangements;
• be flexible about working hours and location, perhaps using smartphones and laptops to help you keep working where possible; and
• be fair – as an employer, try to take into account the circumstances surrounding absence or timekeeping issues before deciding on the action you might take in terms of leave and pay.

Although many people may not be aware of this, employees are not entitled to be paid for time they are unable to work because of travel disruptions. Employers also have the right to decide when an employee must take statutory holiday entitlement, although they must give the employee notice of at least twice the length of holiday the employee is expected to take.

The court case was necessary because the neighbours objected to the fence, which was erected whilst they were on holiday, and claimed that it had been built on their land. They considered the fence to be unsightly and complained that it blocked the view from their drive.

Photographic evidence of the position of an earlier wall was important in determining the line of the boundary, after an expert had given evidence that the boundary line could not be determined exactly.

The judge ordered the fence to be removed and issued an injunction prohibiting the couple from erecting further fencing on their neighbour’s land.

Recently, however, several companies were taken to court by the Office of Fair Trading for breaches of the Regulations.

One of the companies offered invitations to claim ‘prizes’ by sending unsolicited letters to people. The ‘prizes’ that were the subject of the prosecution were either an LCD TV, which was allocated to less than 1 per cent of the applicants, or a ‘Zurich watch’, which was allocated to more than 99 per cent of them. The Zurich watch actually contained a movement made in Japan.

To acquire the prize, it was necessary to obtain a ‘prize code’. This was done by the ‘prize’ recipient telephoning a premium-rate number – which cost £8.95. They then had to send a further £8.50 because the watch was an ‘electrical item’. The total cost to the consumer was therefore £17.45 and the supplier made a profit of approximately £7 on each ‘prize’.

The court concluded that there was, in reality, no prize and that the claimant had effectively bought the watch.

In each case, the OFT found that the Regulations had been breached and that the ‘prize’ element of the promotion was a sham.

There are many unscrupulous traders in the market and promotions that offer ‘free prizes’ are seldom genuine. There are also examples of companies that deliberately target vulnerable people (i.e. the recently bereaved).

Click here for more information on the rights of consumers.

Compensation for Discrimination 
Whilst there need to be remedies for discrimination, employers have expressed concern regarding the high levels of compensation sometimes awarded by Employment Tribunals (ET) in cases of discrimination – and the lack of certainty as to the level of award they may be required to pay. The amount of compensation payable in discrimination cases is unlimited and employers worry that high awards may encourage people to bring weak, speculative or vexatious claims in the hope of a large payout. This can lead to employers opting to settle such cases before they reach the ET;

The Collective Redundancy Rules
Employers are concerned that the current requirements regarding consultation when an employer proposes to make collective redundancies are hindering their ability to restructure efficiently and retain a flexible workforce. Employers in financial difficulty worry about how long they need to keep paying staff after it has become clear that they need to let them go. They also claim that it is not clear from the legislation at what point consultation on redundancies should start or end; and

TUPE
The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) implement the European Directive on Acquired Rights and protect employees’ terms and conditions of employment when there is a relevant transfer of a business, a part of a business or a service provision change from one owner to another. These rules offer important protections but some businesses believe that they are ‘gold plated’ and overly bureaucratic.

The review of these areas of employment law will commence this year.

Employment Relations Minister Edward Davey said, “The areas we are reviewing are priorities for employers. We want to make it easier for businesses to take on staff and grow.”

“We will be looking carefully at the arguments for reform. Fairness for individuals will not be compromised – but where we can make legislation easier to understand, improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy we will.”