Confidentiality Agreements: Buying silence – do gagging clauses really work?

Employees cannot sign away their right to raise legitimate concerns – but employers’ advisers have found various ways to circumvent the law, argues Andrew Yule ‘The problem is… people take a severance agreement, sign a con?dentiality clause and then think they are gagged… whether or not that is true’. Settlement agreements – and particularly ‘gagging’ …
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Public Interest Disclosure: Reforms take effect but spotlight stays on whistleblowing

Following a string of high-profile scandals, interest in whistleblowing looks set to remain high, suggests Fudia Smartt ‘The common belief among workers that there are more risks than benefits in blowing the whistle has led to discussion about whether the UK needs to reward whistleblowers financially.’ On 2 July 1999, the Public Interest Disclosure Act …
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Public Interest Disclosure: A new whistleblowers’ charter?

Christine O’Brien and Kim Sartindiscuss proposed changes to the law protecting those who reveal misconduct or wrongdoing Vicarious liability can only arise where an employee has carried out an unlawful act and there is no provision in the current legislation making it unlawful for employees to victimise whistleblowers. With a multitude of scandals hitting the …
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Detrimental Treatment: Court adopts new causal link test

Helena Davies examines the new ‘material influence’ formula applied by the Court of Appeal in a recent whistleblowing case ‘A detriment claim will succeed if the protected disclosure has influenced the employer’s treatment “more than trivially”, whereas a claim of automatic unfair dismissal will need to show that the disclosure was the reason, or principal …
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