Employment law stories in the news – 12.07.2021 to 18.07.2021

In the latest of our series of posts on employment law stories in the news we take a look at ten employment law stories that have made headlines between 12 July 2021 and 18 July 2021

  1. Victory for Oxford University whistleblower sacked over plagiarism claim – A whistleblower has been awarded £1.6 million after being unfairly sacked when she claimed that Oxford University had plagiarised a leadership course provided to Whitehall (The Times)
  2. Worker who discovered colleagues’ racist WhatsApp chat awarded £25,000 for unlawful harassment – An operations clerk who discovered a WhatsApp group dedicated to racially abusing her and another colleague has been awarded almost £25,000 for unlawful harassment on the grounds of sex, race and religious belief (People Management)
  3. Data officers raid two properties over Matt Hancock CCTV footage leak – Two residential properties in the south of England have been raided by data protection officers, as part of their investigation into who leaked CCTV footage of Matt Hancock kissing an aide in his office (The Guardian)
  4. Black Covent Garden shop assistant wins £8,400 damages after manager branded her the ‘filth of society’ in row over the mispronunciation of her name – A black shop assistant has won a race claim after claiming her manager said she was the ‘filth of society’ (The Daily Mail)
  5. Employment tribunals at ‘breaking point’ with six-month delays – Workers are being pressured to settle employment claims rather than wait years to go to court as the tribunal system reaches “breaking point”, specialists fear (The Times)
  6. Manager who referred to colleague as ‘Good old Nikki’ cleared of age discrimination – A manager who referred to a colleague as “Good old Nikki” has been cleared of age discrimination after a judge ruled he was simply calling her reliable (The Telegraph)
  7. Office manager, 54, fails in bid to sue her boss for discrimination after claiming he said he wanted ‘an Anne Hathaway character from The Devil Wears Prada, not a mum’ – An office manager has failed in her bid to sue her boss for discrimination after claiming he said he wanted to employ ‘an Anne Hathaway character from The Devil Wears Prada, not a mum’ (The Daily Mail)
  8. Firm faces £20k costs bill despite winning unfair dismissal case – An employment tribunal has refused a law firm’s application for costs after ruling that its former chief executive was entitled to believe he could win his unfair dismissal case (The Law Society Gazette)
  9. Trainee solicitor dismissed a month after revealing pregnancy loses employment case – A trainee solicitor told she wasn’t being kept on less than a month after revealing to bosses that she was pregnant has been ordered to stump up £3,000 in costs after losing at the employment tribunal (Legal Cheek)
  10. No further appeal on the Forstater judgment – One of the most talked about employment cases in years is the successful appeal in Forstater v CGD Europe & others heard in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) last month (The Law Society Gazette)