Employers who sponsor employees from outside the European Economic Area under a Tier 2 visa will have to pay the ‘immigration skills charge’ from 6 April 2017. The charge will be levied at £1,000 per employee per year, but small organisations and charities will pay
Insolvency professionals are familiar with so-called ‘spinning top’ schemes, whereby money is moved in a perpetual circle to create an illusion of loss or investment with the sole objective of avoiding tax. The High Court delved into one such alleged scheme but rejected claims that
Housebuilding on green fields can be intensely controversial but objections often have to give way before the ever-widening gap between supply and demand. In one case that illustrated the point, the High Court opened the way for construction of 377 new homes close to an
Some forms of misconduct may appear so serious that dismissal is the only option. However, one case in which a hospital radiographer was sacked for mishandling confidential patient information showed that blanket policies are rarely a good idea and that room should be left for
Fraud can be difficult to detect but judges are alert to the problem and will bend over backwards to assist victims of deceit. In one case, a tribunal came to the aid of a divorcee whose ex-husband used forged documents to defraud her of her
An entrepreneur who claims that he missed out on a £4 million business opportunity due to a law firm’s negligence in drafting a company sale agreement has had fresh life breathed into his compensation claim by the Court of Appeal. The man was the sole
One of the principal reasons why commercial arbitrators so often sit in London is that the English courts are well known for enforcing their decisions to the hilt. In one case that proved the point, a businessman who utterly ignored an arbitration award and a
Many companies that deal with the public like their operatives to appear to clients as their representatives whilst maintaining that they are self-employed. However, such business models will be much harder to maintain after a Court of Appeal ruling. The case concerned a plumbing company
Agency workers are entitled to the same basic working and employment conditions as their directly employed colleagues. Where that does not happen, however, the assessment of compensation can be a tricky matter, as one Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision revealed. The case concerned a group
Tax tribunals deal with some very unusual cases, but few can have been stranger than that concerning VAT liabilities in respect of a ‘pirate island’, built on a former gravel pit in rural England for the private enjoyment of a wealthy family. The artificial island
