Welcome to this month's briefing for HR teams and in-house employment counsel – bringing you this month’s employment law highlights in an easy-to-read package.

Podcast – competition and employment

In this month's podcast, Matthew Ramsey is joined by Rachel Carter and Fiona Beattie from our competition law team. If they think about competition law at all, employment lawyers and HR professionals usually only think about restrictive covenants like non-compete clauses, but the interrelationship between employment and competition law is actually much more complicated, as Rachel and Fiona explain.

Employment Rights Bill

There have been two significant updates to the Employment Rights Bill, which is currently before Parliament. The first is that the Government has published an indicative timetable setting out when each of the major legislative changes is likely to be consulted on, and then implemented. Note, in particular, that the very significant changes to the unfair dismissal regime are now slated to come into effect in October 2026.

The second is that a slew of new amendments have been tabled in the latest round of Parliamentary debate, some from backbenchers, and some from the Government. The most significant Government amendments would see a softening of the ban on so-called fire and rehire, and a further tightening on the use of NDAs where allegations of harassment have been made.

Data privacy

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has now come into effect. The Information Commissioner’s Office has produced helpful guidance, but the key changes are (i) to make it clear that data controllers only have to perform reasonable and proportionate searches in response to a data subject access request; and (ii) to make it slightly easier to use automated decision-making.

Cross-border disputes

Litigation with a cross-border element has always been complex, with overlapping concepts of territorial scope and jurisdiction at play. In an interesting judgment the EAT has reviewed these concepts in the context of discrimination claims brought against a UK-based LLP and some of its Sweden-based members. Analysing the territorial reach of the Equality Act, the service requirements of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure, the post-Brexit jurisdictional rules set out in the amended Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, and the pre-Brexit scope of the Recast Brussels Regulation, the EAT concluded that the claims against the individual Sweden-based LLP members could proceed to trial. Businesses, including LLPs, with non-UK establishments or members should therefore ensure their internal procedures conform with local law and, where commercially practicable, with UK principles as well.

Contractual drafting

Well-drafted employment contracts often contain provisions which confirm that the contract itself represents the totality of the agreement between the parties (an entire agreement clause) and which state that any variation or modification to the agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties, rather than made orally (a no oral modifications or NOM clause). The Supreme Court confirmed in 2019 that NOM clauses were acceptable in principle, and the EAT has now confirmed that both types of clause are effective. In the case, a consultant had argued that he was owed additional fees because, so he said, the firm’s owner had verbally agreed that. The argument failed.