Retirement

New and updated

• Date:

  24 December 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Age discrimination: recent tribunal decisions

  A review of a number of recent employment tribunal decisions suggests that some employers remain unaware of the implications of, or are struggling with, the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/1031), which became law on 1 October 2006. The decisions also demonstrate the approach that the tribunals might take to the question of justification of discrimination and to the assessment of injury to feelings compensation.

• Date:

  17 October 2007

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Félix Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA

  In Félix Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA Case C-411/05, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given its judgment that the Equal Treatment Directive (2000/78/EC) does not preclude a Spanish law permitting clauses in collective agreements that allow employees to be compulsorily retired when they reach a specified age.

• Date:

  7 May 2004

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Contracts of employment: No implied duty to take care for employee's economic wellbeing

  In Crossley v Faithful & Gould Holdings Ltd the Court of Appeal holds that there is no implied contractual obligation for an employer to take reasonable care for its employees' economic wellbeing.

• Date:

  1 August 2002

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Transfer of undertakings: Early retirement pension paid on redundancy dismissal not excluded by TUPE

  Early retirement and enhanced benefits paid on dismissal for redundancy to employees who have reached a certain age are not "old-age, invalidity or survivors' benefits" within the meaning of article 3(4) of the EC Business Transfers Directive, even if those benefits were calculated by reference to the rules for calculating normal pension benefits, holds the European Court of Justice in Beckmann v Dynamco Whicheloe Macfarlane Ltd.

• Date:

  15 November 1997

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Contracts of employment: Age discrimination provision did not apply after contractual retirement age

  An employer did not act in fundamental breach of an employee's contract of employment when it required him to retire at the age of 55, in accordance with its retirement policy aimed at achieving a younger workforce, even though the contract incorporated an equal opportunities policy containing an express commitment to offer equal opportunities regardless of age, rules the EAT in Secretary of State for Scotland v Taylor.

• Date:

  1 September 1994

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Time runs from 22.11.93

  The time limit for bringing a complaint against a public sector employer in respect of discriminatory retirement did not begin to run until the date the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay (Remedies) Regulations 1993 came into force, rules a Southampton industrial tribunal (Chair: I T Soulsby) in Wild v Portsmouth & SE Hants Health Authority.

• Date:

  1 May 1986

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Discriminatory retirement age

  In Marshall v Southampton and South-West Hampshire Area Health Authority (26.2.86) EOR7E, the European Court of Justice rules that compulsory retirement of men and women at different ages contravenes the EEC Equal Treatment Directive.

• Date:

  19 March 1985

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Dismissal: Termination by mutual agreement

  In Birch and Humber v University of Liverpool the Court of Appeal upholds a tribunal's finding that the termination of employment which resulted from the employees' offer to retire early and the employer's acceptance of that offer was not a dismissal but a termination by mutual agreement; so, there having been no dismissal, the employees were not entitled to a redundancy payment.