In this new edition of our Need to Know employment law newsletter we look at the crackdown on bad behaviour in the workplace with new FCA rules and a higher bar on sexual harassment in the Equality Act, the extent of personal liability for disability discrimination in the workplace, and get clarification on the causation test for part-time worker discrimination.
- New workplace rules crackdown on bad behaviour
- It could be you… EAT confirms individual liability in disability reasonable adjustment claims
- Sole or effective cause? Causation test for part-time worker discrimination clarified
Also included are our usual HR Bullets, which cover other significant employment law updates from the past month.
HR Bullets
- The EAT confirmed that a tribunal has no power to make a consent order once a party has told the tribunal, before the order is made, that they no longer agree to the proposed terms, even where that party had previously agreed to those terms in writing. Employers negotiating settlement of tribunal claims should treat a consent order as uncertain until it is actually sealed by the tribunal and should not assume finality merely because terms have previously been agreed.
Edward v North London NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EAT 116 - The EAT largely upheld a tribunal’s finding that a university’s termination of a professor for expressing anti-Zionist beliefs was direct philosophical belief discrimination, unfair and wrongful dismissal and confirmed that where a non-objectionable expression of a protected belief forms a material part of the reason for dismissal, the dismissal cannot be justified even if other, genuinely objectionable conduct was also in the mix. Employers should be cautious about dismissing employees for lawful expressions of controversial beliefs and should consider a warning or lesser sanction as the starting point.
University of Bristol v Miller [2026] EAT 84 - An employment tribunal awarded a former Goldman Sachs executive approximately £1.45 million after finding he was unfairly dismissed and subjected to sex discrimination following comments made about him during a period of paternity leave, including that he was “kind of lazy”. The case is a reminder that stigma and career damage flowing from a discriminatory dismissal can significantly increase compensation, and that generous family leave policies offer no protection if employees are actually penalised in practice for using them.
Reeves v Goldman Sachs (London Central Employment Tribunal, July 2026)