The phrase ‘lost in translation’ was certainly apposite to a High Court case in which a commercial dispute hinged on the disputed meaning of a foreign statute, which was written in two foreign languages and had been translated into English six times, each version throwing up slight, but potentially critical, differences.
Diplomats are immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of host countries – but there are limits to that principle. The Supreme Court identified one such in an important decision concerning a domestic servant who claimed to have been trafficked and mistreated by a diplomat and his wife.
If a negligent worker causes injury in the course of his job, compensation is generally payable by his or her employer under the principle of vicarious liability. However, as one case concerning an office prank showed, that does not apply where the worker concerned is on a frolic of his own.
Fire safety regulations are there to be obeyed and those who fail to do so will be hit hard in the pocket. In one case, a sweets manufacturer was fined £60,000 after a five-storey building that it occupied was condemned as a potential death trap.
Trade unions have a statutory right to call their members out on strike so long as the correct procedures are followed. However, as one case concerning proposed industrial action by more than 100,000 Royal Mail workers showed, that right can be cut down by agreement.
Once an hour or perhaps every two? Will anyone even notice? It can be a controversial topic, but these are your rights to smoking at work
If you’re a smoker, are you legally entitled to a few minutes a day out of the office for a quick cigarette break?
Following the decision of the Supreme Court that the introduction of Employment Tribunal fees in July 2013 was unlawful (R on the application of UNISON v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51), the Ministry of Justice announced that the Government would cease charging fees immediately and take steps to refund payments made since their introduction – no easy task.
Litigation is often an exercise in brinkmanship and the need to make knife-edge decisions under pressure is one very good reason why advice from experienced professionals frequently makes the difference between victory and defeat.
WhatsApp, the instant messaging app used by circa 1.9 billion people (according to Statista, July 2017), is in my opinion, the next best chat invention since MSN.
Uploading information to the Internet takes seconds and mistakes are easily made, but the consequences of publishing private data online can be severe. In one case, a local planning authority was fined £150,000 after it posted personal information about a family of travelers on its website.