In the newest edition of our Need to Know employment law newsletter we give some guidance on how the new Neonatal Care (Leave & Pay) Act 2023 will work, look at how employers should manage competing interests with regard to religion and belief in the workplace, and consider whether foster caring is considered work in the eyes of the court.
- New details on how the Neonatal Care (Leave & Pay) Act 2023 will work
- Religion and belief in the workplace – How Employers should manage competing interests
- Foster caring – Where does it fall, the sphere of ‘family’ or ‘work’?
We also have included our usual HR Bullets – which cover other significant employment law updates from the past month.
HR Bullets
- The EAT has held that an employment tribunal’s award of £10,000 for injury to feelings was manifestly excessive for an act of pregnancy/maternity discrimination claim that consisted of the employer failing to take adequate steps to deal with a grievance that the claimant had twice emailed but which had been blocked by its firewall;
Eddie Stobart Ltd v Graham (MATERNITY RIGHTS) [2025] EAT 14 - The Court of Appeal has held that the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, which render it unlawful to compile or use a list of persons who have taken part in trade union activities with a view to discriminating against them, confer protection on those who have taken part in industrial action;
Morais & Ors v Ryanair DAC [2025] EWCA Civ 19 - The EAT has held that an employment tribunal erred in its decision to reject a claim months after it had been instituted on the basis that the claimant had not complied with the requirements of the early conciliation (EC) scheme. It was concluded that a claimant’s failure to comply with the requirement for EC does not deprive the tribunal of jurisdiction to hear the claim and so the claims were remitted to the tribunal for consideration on their merits;
Abel Estate Agent Ltd and Others v Elizabeth Reynolds: [2025] EAT 6 - The EAT has held that an employment tribunal was entitled to allow an application for relief from sanction (i.e., if a party fails to comply with a rule, practice direction or court order they will be subject to sanctions by the court, such as a fee, unless the defaulting party applies for and obtains relief from the sanction) by a respondent who had made a costs application but had failed to comply with an order requiring it to produce a summary schedule of costs by a certain date;
Ms N Sivanandan v (1) Independent Office for Police Conduct (2) Penna PLC [2025] EAT 7 - The Court of Appeal upheld the EAT’s decision that Spain was not entitled to state immunity under section 4(2)(a) of the State Immunity Act 1978 in relation to employment tribunal claims for race discrimination and harassment brought under the Equality Act 2010 by a former member of administrative staff in the Spanish embassy;
Kingdom of Spain v Lorenzo [2024] EWCA 1602 - An employment tribunal has found that a consultant who contracted with a recruitment agency through a service company was a worker of the agency under the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996);
Appiah v Tripod Partners Ltd ET/2302929/2023 - An employment tribunal decided that Addison Lee drivers were workers for the purposes of holiday pay, national minimum wage and deductions from wages claims;
Afshar and others v Addison Lee Ltd ET/3306435/2020 - The EAT considered the scope of an employee’s right to recover benefits under a PHI scheme as part of a deduction from wages claim and determined that the PHI scheme did give rise to an obligation on the employer to make payments to the employee whilst her employment was ongoing. The EAT also overturned the tribunal’s decision to strike out her disability discrimination claim on the ground that a fair hearing was no longer possible;
McMahon v AXA ICAS Ltd [2025] EAT 8 - An employment tribunal held that, despite not having contracts with local authorities, foster carers can bring whistleblowing and discrimination claims;
Oni and others v London Borough of Waltham Forest and others ET/3204635/2021 - The EAT considered whether an employment tribunal had erred by determining the identity of the claimant’s employer in circumstances where no witness evidence had been given, as well as whether the tribunal had been wrong to accept a claim in which the claimant had not complied with Acas early conciliation. It was determined that the tribunal had been wrong to proceed to adjudicate on the issue in the absence of witness evidence;
Smirnov v Ramboll UK Ltd and another [2025] EAT 12