Illegality of contract

New and updated

• Formation of the employment contract

  Type:

  Employment law manual

  Updated to include information on Okedina v Chikale, in which the Court of Appeal considered if contractual claims could be blocked due to illegal working.

• Illegal working did not make contract of employment unenforceable

  Date:

  5 August 2019

  Type:

  Law reports

  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.

• Case round-up

  Date:

  1 July 2017

  Type:

  Law reports

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

• Race discrimination: An employee's illegal immigration status did not operate as a bar to defeat her discrimination claims

  Date:

  3 December 2014

  Type:

  Law reports

  In Hounga v Allen and another [2014] IRLR 811 SC, the Supreme Court held that a domestic worker who had knowingly entered the country illegally was entitled to claim discrimination against her employer despite the fact that her employment was unlawful.

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

  Date:

  5 August 2014

  Type:

  Law reports

  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.

• Illegality did not prevent sex discrimination claim

  Date:

  10 March 2014

  Type:

  Law reports

  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.

• Illegal contract

  Type:

  Employment glossary

  Definition from the XpertHR glossary.

• Race discrimination: Public policy operated to prevent an au pair proceeding with a claim that was inextricably bound up with her own illegal conduct

  Date:

  6 November 2012

  Type:

  Law reports

  In Hounga v Allen and another [2012] IRLR 685 CA, the Court of Appeal held that an employee's illegal conduct that "formed a material part of her dismissal discrimination case" barred her from proceeding with the claim.

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

  Date:

  24 May 2012

  Type:

  Law reports

  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. 

• Case round-up

  Date:

  1 June 2011

  Type:

  Law reports

  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.