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Illegality of contract

New and updated

  • Type:
    Employment law guide

    Formation of the employment contract

    Updated to include information on Robinson v Al-Qasimi, in which the Court of Appeal considered if a contract that was previously performed illegally, was enforceable.

  • Date:
    5 August 2019
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Illegal working did not make contract of employment unenforceable

    In Okedina v Chikale, the Court of Appeal held that a worker's former employer could not block her contractual claims by arguing that she was working without the required immigration status.

  • Date:
    1 July 2017
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Case round-up

    Kirsti Laird is senior associate at Charles Russell Speechlys. She rounds up the latest rulings.

  • Date:
    5 August 2014
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Racial harassment: Supreme Court allows illegal employee's discrimination claim to proceed

    The Supreme Court has held that the connection between an employee's immigration offences and the statutory civil wrong of discrimination is insufficiently close to prevent her from making a claim for pre-dismissal racial harassment.

  • Date:
    10 March 2014
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Illegality did not prevent sex discrimination claim

    The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the fact that a claimant had worked under an illegal contract did not prevent her from claiming sex discrimination.

  • Date:
    24 May 2012
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Au pair's discrimination claims barred for being inextricably linked with her own illegal conduct

    The Court of Appeal has held that an employee who worked in the UK knowing that she did not have permission to do so was unable to claim discrimination against her unlawful employers, given that her illegal actions formed a material part of her discrimination claims. 

  • Date:
    1 June 2011
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Case round-up

    Claire Benson is managing associate and Helen Corbett, Sinead Jones, Helen Ward and Tori O'Neil are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.

  • Date:
    27 June 2008
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Contract not rendered illegal where no misrepresentation of the facts

    In Enfield Technical Services Ltd v Payne; BF Components Ltd v Grace [2008] EWCA Civ 393, the Court of Appeal held that a genuine error in the categorisation of employment status will not be enough to establish illegality where there has been no express or implied misrepresentation of the facts of the working arrangements.

  • Date:
    16 October 2007
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Contract rendered illegal only where facts misrepresented

    In Enfield Technical Services Ltd v Payne; Grace v BF Components Ltd EAT/0644/06, the EAT holds that the contracts of employment were not tainted by illegality because, although the parties had wrongly characterised them as contracts of self-employment, in neither case had the parties misrepresented to the authorities the facts of their relationship.

  • Date:
    1 November 2004
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Soteriou v Ultrachem Ltd and others

    In Soteriou v Ultrachem Ltd and others [2004] IRLR 870 HC, the High Court held that the EAT had not erred in striking out the applicant's claim for wrongful dismissal on the basis that an employment tribunal had already determined on a claim for unfair dismissal that the applicant's contract of employment was unenforceable due to illegality and that, since the claim for wrongful dismissal involved the same contract, the EAT was bound by that finding.

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HR and legal information and guidance relating to illegality of contract.