34 legal focus Employment law: increasingly complex
More than 120 guests attended the latest update from the employment team at Coffin Mew Solicitors at its increasingly-popular employment breakfast briefing, held at the Ageas Bowl.
Darren Tibble, a partner in the employment team, said: “With so many new changes coming in during this coming year it’s vital businesses get the opportunity to hear about these firsthand and have a chance to network with their peers in senior HR roles from companies in the south.“
Partner Dorlee Monschau and solicitor Tabytha Cunningham took the audience through a number of changes which have occurred recently and will be introduced throughout summer and beyond, including the reduction in the length of the collective consultation period for redundancies, an increase to parental leave rights, changes to the compensation that can be awarded for straightforward unfair dismissals and proposed changes to compromise agreements which
regimes it will take time to bed down and have issues clarified.
“ACAS has supported the Government’s light-touch approach in the hope it avoids satellite litigation, taking the view that the process will need to be changed in light of new experiences. However, it seems inevitable some litigation will occur as a result to challenge and injustices that occur in the bedding down period.“
Darren Tibble
will shortly be called settlement agreements.
“The Government has also been looking closely at the way that the employment tribunal process operates and one of the main changes is the proposed introduction of employment tribunal fees,“ said Monschau. “Although fees have been proposed on the basis that users of the employment tribunal should bear some of the costs, and not specifically to tackle vexatious
Dorlee Monschau
claims, this will be welcomed by employers as a positive change.
“Another of these new measures is a new mandatory pre-claim conciliation process using ACAS. The idea is to encourage parties to reach a settlement before proceedings are issued with the view of freeing up the tribunals; this has yet to be finalised, but is expected next April. It is going to pose different challenges for represented and unrepresented parties; as with all these new
Moore Blatch advises on £30m bar deal
Corporate lawyers from Moore Blatch in Hampshire have advised the Imbiba Partnership and management team on the £30 million management buyout and expansion financing by mid-market private equity firm, Bowmark Capital of Drake & Morgan, the fast-growing London- based bar-restaurant group.
Drake & Morgan was founded in 2008 by the Imbiba Partnership, the specialist bar and restaurant investment partnership, and managing director Jillian MacLean, the highly-regarded leisure entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in the hospitality industry. The vision was to create an innovative new chain of bar-restaurants in London that combined a stylish, accessible and female-friendly environment with a unique all-day food and drink offering.
Since opening its first site, The Refinery, in Southwark in late 2008, Drake & Morgan has added The Parlour in Canary Wharf, and three sites in the City of London:
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The Anthologist, The Folly and The Drift. Two additional venues are due to open later his year and the company has a strong pipeline of sites for development.
The ’eating and drinking out’ market has shown long-term growth over the past 20 years, and has proven resilient throughout the economic downturn. Within this market, Drake & Morgan, which has won numerous industry awards, has performed particularly strongly – having grown sales at over 75% per annum over the past three years to the current level of £18m.
Moore Blatch corporate partner Roger Bailey, who led a team of 10 lawyers on the complex deal, said: “We have worked with Drake & Morgan since it was founded and, having seen it develop into one of the best restaurant-bar offerings around, we are delighted to have helped Imbiba and the management team in realising and co-ordinating an exit for the company’s 79 shareholders and in providing a platform for its further growth.“
John Connell of Imbiba said: “The performance of Roger Bailey and his team was truly exceptional. They were the stars of the show. They were ahead of the game at all times and were able to anticipate issues and work through them quickly and efficiently, enabling a complex and challenging deal to be delivered.“
As part of its future plans, Bowmark has committed further funds to support the roll-out strategy, alongside a debt package from RBS Financial Sponsors. Bowmark has a strong track record of backing successful roll-outs in the leisure industry, including previous investments in the Las Iguanas and Living Room restaurant and bar chains.
Connell will continue in his role as chairman of Drake & Morgan post-transaction. He and his fellow Imbiba partners, Simon Wheeler and Mark Brumby, are retaining a minority stake, alongside Jillian MacLean and her management team.
Finally the audience was taken on a whistle-stop tour of recent cases by solicitor Charlotte Farrell, including a recent case regarding Facebook, where an employee had allegedly posted inappropriate comments regarding their employer.
“Employment law is becoming more and more complex,“ concluded Tibble. “Breakfast briefings provide a real opportunity to air some of these issues in a live environment. It’s all very well reading reports, but there is no substitute to sitting in a room with your peers and discussing how these might affect your business.“
Parental leave
increased Employers should be aware that the amount of unpaid parental leave that can be taken by parents for each child under five years of age, or in the case of an adopted child, in the five years after the placement, has increased. It rose in March from 13 to 18 weeks.
Shaun Underhill, a partner at Shentons Solicitors in Winchester, added that parents of children who qualify for disability living allowance are also entitled to 18 weeks’ parental leave until the child’s 18th birthday. “To qualify for parental leave, an employee must have worked for their employer for more than one year,“ said Underhill.
“Where an employee has more than one child, he or she has the right to take unpaid parental leave in respect of each child, but the limit in any one year is four weeks, unless the employer agrees otherwise. Also, unless an employer agrees otherwise or the child is disabled, parental leave should be taken in blocks of one week.“
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – JUNE 2013
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