Tughans Solicitors

Key UK employment law developments April 2024

Several statutory employment payment rates receive their annual increase in April across the UK, including a record increase to the National Living Wage. Several new employment laws also come into force in Great Britain, which may indicate changes to come in Northern Ireland which employers should start preparing for now.   1. Annual employment rate... Read More

Victoria Square Belfast – Claims by Apartment Owners Struck Out

A recent decision of the High Court in Belfast has highlighted the difficulties which can face property owners who bring claims in respect of construction defects many years after their property was built. The case relates to the Victoria Square development of 91 residential apartments where the claims against the building contractors and designers involved... Read More

2023 Deal activity in Northern Ireland and looking ahead to 2024

2023 Deal Activity in Review 2023 represented a year of deal activity in Northern Ireland, despite the prevailing macro-economic headwinds. According to the recently published Experian Market IQ: 2023 Report, “…. overall M&A activity in Northern Ireland was lower than in the preceding two years, while still sitting at the higher end of the... Read More

Contractors’ termination rights under JCT clarified in recent judgment

Contractors’ termination rights under JCT clarified in recent judgment.   JCT contracts are a suite of widely used standard form construction contracts, often between an Employer and a Contractor, which set out the contractual obligations of the parties in carrying out a building project. In the recent case of Providence Building Services Limited v Hexagon... Read More

UK to leave Energy Charter Treaty

The UK has announced its plan to leave the Energy Charter Treaty. The treaty contains a controversial, and often opaque Investor Dispute Settlement Provision, which allowed fossil fuel investors to sue states for lost profit expectations. One such example is a claim brought by a UK Fossil Fuel company against Slovenia following a request for... Read More

Pay when? Clarity on ‘final date for payment’ in the case of Lidl Great Britain Limited v Closed Circuit Cooling Limited t/a 3CL

Anyone within the construction industry will know that it pays to ensure that your contracts comply with the payment provisions specified within the Construction Contracts (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (the “Order”) (or the similarly worded English law equivalent Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (the “Act”)). However, it is an often glossed over fact... Read More

Stormont returns: 11 potential employment law changes

Employment law in Northern Ireland has remained largely static in recent years due to successive suspensions of the Assembly in 2017-2020 and 2022-2024. This has increasingly left Northern Ireland trailing behind the rest of the UK, where the pace of change hasn’t slowed, and indeed a number of important developments are due this year. Catching... Read More

Is the feeling really mutual? Examining the impact of Winter v Winter on mutual wills

A recent decision in the High Court in England has highlighted the difficulty in challenging a Will on the basis of the principle of mutual Wills. In the case of Winter & Anor v Winter , two brothers sought to challenge their father’s Will on the basis of this legal principle, which is an agreement... Read More

Decoding the Law of Low-Code and No-Code Platforms

Considering diving into the world of low-code and no-code platforms? Smart move! In today’s dynamic digital world, businesses across a wide range of sectors are increasingly embracing low-code / no-code platforms to simplify software development, such as app-building or automated workflows. These platforms enable users to create applications without extensive coding knowledge and have revolutionised... Read More

Government confirms day one flexible working requests and increased protection from redundancy for employees during pregnancy or returning from maternity leave

Two sets of regulations were laid before Parliament which confirm the government’s proposed changes in two areas of employment law. The first changes the current rules on flexible working, while the second increases the special protections from redundancy afforded to employees who are pregnant or returning from statutory family leave.   Flexible working • The... Read More