Press Release

 27^th January 2010

 Royds at The Spring Fair 2010 International

7-11 February 2010 Birmingham NEC

Stephen Welfare, Head of Intellectual Property at City law firm Royds, supported by lawyers from the corporate and litigation departments, will again attend the annual Spring Fair to provide on the ground support and advice to members of the British Jewellers’ Association, the British Travelgoods and Accessories Association, the Jewellery Distributors Association and other clients.

The Spring Fair is the largest trade fair in the UK covering products as diverse as jewellery, giftware, kitchen and dining ware, greeting cards and stationery, toys, furnishings and more. Last year there were over 52,000 visiting buyers. At this year’s show there will be, as usual, thousands of exhibitors (including 600 overseas suppliers) and over 250,000 new products launched

Stephen, who advises the BJA and its members, and many other organisations in the giftware and luxury goods markets on protecting their designs and intellectual property rights commented “It will be great to be at the Spring Fair again and to meet with so many BJA, BTAA and JDA members and other clients whilst they are at such an important event. We go to protect our clients’ interests by keeping an eye out for possible infringements and to provide immediate advice with any issues that arise. We are there to offer advice and support to established businesses and new start-up firms, designers and inventors alike. It really is an incredible event to attend”.

Royds has also produced a comprehensive guide to Agency and Distribution which it provides for the many international buyers and distributors who attend the show who are seeking UK agents and distributors.

 For further information, please contact:

Tel no 02078421426

Email sbw@royds.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Royds

Royds is a long established 17 partner commercial City law practice with strong private client facing teams. The firm is well known for its commercial, retail property, employment and commercial litigation practices. It includes a number of banks, airlines, AIM listed and large private companies in its client portfolio. As a member of international association Interleges, Royds regularly advises clients entering the UK market and works on transactions with an international element acting for companies in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East.

 Duncan Holden, formerly of Lovells, McGrigors and Speechly Bircham, will join City law firm Royds in January 2010. His arrival brings the corporate team there to four partners and the partnership overall to 17.

 Duncan has worked closely with leading corporate finance advisers including KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers on many transactions including public takeovers, private M&A debt for equity swaps and buy outs. He has particular expertise in public-to-private transactions involving unlisted stub equity funding.

 Duncan also acted for pubs supremo, Michael Cannon, on his £82 million take-private of the Eldridge Pope pub chain (September 2004) and on his subsequent £155 million disposal of Eldridge Pope to Marston's plc (January 2007).

 Duncan commented “As well as having a chunky corporate department with extensive international experience, Royds has an impressive client list and a really agreeable culture which is rare in the City these days”.

 John North, head of the corporate team at Royds commented “Whilst the recession has made conditions tough, at Royds we have been somewhat insulated with work from overseas and our specialist teams in the retail, insolvency and charities sectors. We are delighted that Duncan is joining us – it significantly enhances our corporate capabilities”.

 Other partners in the corporate team at Royds include:

             John North – Private company sales and international transactions

            Julian Rampton – Third sector

Peter Wootton – Banking and insolvency

 For further information, please contact:

 John North, Head of Corporate

0207 842 1490

jdn@royds.com

 Duncan Holden, Corporate Partner (from January 2010)

0207 842 1402

dh@royds.com

The House of Lords has confirmed that workers can enjoy their right to be paid statutory holiday while on long-term sick leave. The decision in the case of Stringer v HM Revenue and Customs comes as welcome news to thousands of sick workers who feared  – following an earlier Court of Appeal judgment – that they had lost their right to holiday pay because they were not at work.

And the European Court of Justice got in on the act as well. The Lords had referred a number of questions arising from Stringer v HMRC to the ECJ after the Appeal Court ruled that annual leave could not accrue when a worker was not actually working. 

As we reported in the Spring ME Essential, the ECJ ruled to the contrary: that workers who were off sick for most or all of the “annual leave year” were entitled to a period of paid annual leave despite the fact that they were not working. It said that the national courts should decide whether paid holiday leave was taken during that year or carried over to the following year but, either way, the employee was entitled to be paid in relation to holiday at some point. 

The Revenue gave up the fight at the House of Lords hearing. As a result of this, a worker will not only accrue statutory holiday entitlement during periods of sick leave but will also be able to carry over statutory paid leave to the following holiday year.

Employers now have three choices: whether to let workers take leave during their sickness absence, and pay them for it; or to allow them to take the accrued leave on return to work; or to pay them for it on termination. Payments made to workers in lieu of untaken statutory holiday on termination will also be unaffected by sickness absence.

A conflict with the Working Time Regulations in the UK, which say that statutory holidays cannot be carried over from year to year, may have to be brought into harmony by another change in the law.
Importantly, the House of Lords also ruled that workers can now also bring claims for statutory holiday pay under the unlawful deduction from wages provisions. This means that workers can now potentially recover holiday pay going back several years.  This is not possible under the Working Time Regulations, which deals with claims in relation to holiday pay, because of its stringent time limits.

Helen Murphie, employment specialist at Royds Solicitors with whom the ME Association works on private health insurance disputes, said: “The House of Lords decision brings clarity on the issue of paid  holiday entitlement and sick leave.

“It also brings some peace of mind for sick workers who feared that they would not be entitled to holiday pay. However, the decision will not be popular with employers who will be saddled with additional costs, potentially going back several years.  It is likely that workers who have exhausted statutory sick pay will also be knocking on employer’s doors for their holiday pay.” 

She added: “There are also possible implications for permanent health insurance (PHI) schemes since workers may argue that they are entitled to PHI holiday pay on top of their PHI benefits.”

For further advice about personal injury claims or employment law, you can contact Royds specialists on 0207 583 2222.

This month former MEP Thomas Wise was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for making false claims on his MEP expenses. In the wake of the furore over politician’s expenses will this now satisfy the public’s appetite, fuelled by a charged British press, or is this the start of a public purge that might yet see more politicians in our criminal courts? If so, are there lessons to be learnt from the Wise case?

MEPs receive, in addition to their salary and generous expenses, an allowance from the European Parliament to assist them discharge their duties called “Parliamentary Assistance Allowance”, for the payment of staff and contractors (or service providers). An amount of up to €17,000 per month is available to each MEP under this allowance. This is a considerable amount of money and yet the rules governing how this vast sum shall be spent have been less than perfectly clear, and have been revised many times.  

The European Parliament rules of procedure provide at rule 8 that;

            “The bureau shall lay down rules governing the payment of expenses and allowance to members”.

That is it, it is left to a body of MEPs comprising the President of the European Parliament and 14 Vice Presidents constituting “the Bureau” to take financial, organisational and administrative decisions on matters concerning MEPs [Rule 22]. 

The Handbook for Members states that the Parliamentary Assistance Allowance is to cover expenses arising out of the employment or use of the services of one or more assistants, chosen at the MEP’s discretion. The only administrative obligation on the European Parliament is to pay the remuneration in accordance with the member’s instruction. It is the member who makes the contract with the employee or service provider, not the Parliament. The European Parliament has no direct interest in what the services being provided are, or by whom. 

The Bureau rules governing the payment of expenses require that a signed application for an allowance together with a copy of the contract made with the service provider be filed with the Director General of Finance. The service provider must be paid direct by the European Parliament or via a designating paying agent, and not through the MEP. The contract between the MEP and the employee or service provider must include details of their name, length of the contract, a summary of work to be done, where, remuneration and the contract must specify that the European Parliament is not a party to it. A standard form of document is provided. Given that there are 736 MEPs from 27 different countries with a combined Parliamentary Assistance Allowance of over €150m per annum, it is understandable if the legion of claims received by the European Parliamentary Payments Office are not closely scrutinised. The choice of who to employ and for what is at the discretion of the MEP.

In January 08 an internal audit of the Parliamentary Assistance Allowance was printed, the “Galvin Report”. It has never been released by the European Parliament to the public, we only have a leaked copy from the Tax Payers Alliance, and that is perhaps not surprising given that the report reveals wholesale abuses by MEPs. The report refers to claims for paying assistants of whom no records exists, who were then paid bonuses; and of payments being made to companies whose audited accounts revealed that they had no trading activity. In order to use up the full allowance, considerable bonuses were paid to employees and payments were made direct to MEP’s political parties. The Galvin Report highlights the fact that only a summary of work to be done is required to be given in the contract and the model contract contains only a generic description

            “To assist [the MEP] in connection with the exercise of the office of the member.”

In May of this year The Times reported that a third of British MEP’s employ their family on expenses. In addition to the assistance allowance an MEP is entitled to claim the expenses of running a constituency office, which for many is their home. They are not required to file receipts for this.

Whilst the public cry foul over MEP expenses, the Members deny any actual wrong-doing and say that they only claim what they are entitled to. The culture at Brussels is ‘use it or lose it’, with the result that ways to spend whatever allowances are made available are found. Is the position any different at Westminster? The enquiries conducted by the British media since The Daily Telegraph revelations in May of this year suggest not. MPs at Westminster have been exposed for violating the spirit of the Rules if not the precise wording of them. 

The Rules governing an MP’s allowances are set out in “the Green Book”. A principle of the rules is that, “claims must only be made for expenditure that it was necessary for a Member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her Parliamentary duties.”

Where Mr Wise got into difficulty was in the submission of an allowance claim that was false, namely it purported to be for payment of a monthly sum to a researcher but the monies went to his account and he paid the researcher only part of the money. At court he admitted false accounting a charge which it seems to me could very easily be levelled at countless other MEPs and MPs. If the claim for expenses was made in a false document which the MEP or MP knew was misleading or was deceptive in a material way then he or she acted dishonestly. Wherever an MEP or MP knew that his or her expenses claim was misleading and likely to cause another person to believe it to be genuine (that is to say allowable) then criminal proceedings could be brought against him or her. 

The extravagance of the claim made by MPs has been widely reported in the media and it beggars belief that MPs did not think that reasonable and honest people would consider such claims to be dishonest.

If a person is told that claims for expenses in addition to his salary can be claimed then it is to be expected that he will do so. In April 2009 the Daily Mail reported on how the credit crunch had impacted on the expense accounts of City financiers, with “A crackdown on gourmet lunches, first class travel and even trips to strip clubs…” Whether the expenses are made available to persons in the public or private sector, all claims must be made honestly. The rules regarding what and how expenses are paid must be in clear terms, and in the public sector there must be transparency and fairness, if Mr Wise is not be made a scapegoat and nothing otherwise changes.

The 2010 Interleges Award will be on the topic of “Reception and Enforcement of International Arbitration Orders and Awards". There is an attractive prize of €4,000 and an expenses paid invitation to attend the Interleges AGM in Kiev, Ukraine in May next year. For further details of the 2010 Interleges Award, please visit http://www.interleges.com/

Royds has been providing updates on developments at the firm and on legal matters on Twitter since June 2009.

Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Each message or “tweet” is less than 140 characters – so it is particularly effective at conveying information quickly and succinctly. Each Twitter account selects which other accounts it wishes to ‘Follow’ and, hopefully, attract ‘Followers’ of its own.

John North, commercial partner, commented “As more of our clients use social media as part of their business, so we find it is important that a modern law firm like Royds embraces the technology. We find it particularly helpful at keeping in touch with international developments and in watching news about organisations we work with. Our clients find Twitter a particularly useful way to keep up to date with all the legal developments and to know when new information is posted onto our web site at www.royds.com”

There are now over 100 Royds followers – representing clients, the media, colleagues in the legal profession and overseas associates.

At present all commercial and private client tweets are sent from one account – RoydsLLP. Depending on demand and on the volume of material the firm may develop separate accounts for particular areas of expertise – for example, on the commercial side there may be separate accounts on retail, employment, charities, international disputes, intellectual property and agency/distribution and on the private client side, family and wills, trust and probate.

If you have any suggestions about how Royds can improve communications, please contact John North. If you would like some assistance in getting started with Twitter – or in finding Royds on Twitter – please contact administrator Claire Field.

For further information, please contact:

John North, Commercial partner, Royds                          jdn@royds.com   020 7842 1490

Royds is a long established 16 partner commercial City law practice with strong private client facing teams. The firm is well known for its commercial, retail property, employment and commercial litigation practices. It includes a number of banks, airlines, AIM listed and large private companies in its client portfolio. As a member of international association Interleges, Royds regularly advises clients entering the UK market and works on transactions with an international element acting for companies in Europe, the United States, Asia  and the Middle East.

www.royds.com

A Council employee stands to pocket the largest compensation payout in an age discrimination case in the UK after an appeal court today refused to overturn his Tribunal victory. 

John Wooster, 52, was dismissed by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in December 2006 to prevent him from obtaining enhanced pension benefits after 33 years of loyal service. His claims of unfair dismissal and age discrimination were upheld by an Employment Tribunal in January 2008.  

The Council appealed against the age discrimination finding in a two day hearing in June this year. Arguing that the appeal was of importance to local authorities across the country, it recruited a top QC to its legal team, and also requested the President of the Employment Appeals Tribunal should chair the appeal panel.

Mr Wooster of Chigwell, Essex, said: “I am absolutely delighted and thrilled. It has been an extremely difficult time; to have to go through not one but two legal battles, - but I have come through to the other side and I can now relax at last. I could not have done this without the support of Royds and my barrister Rachel Toney.”

He added: “The Council thought it could just get rid of me because it didn’t want to pay my pension. Instead of just admitting its wrongdoing, it arrogantly fought my claims – not once but twice. I hope that it now learns its lesson.” 

Helen Murphie from Royds Solicitors said: “This is a triumph for Mr Wooster.   This was a “David and Goliath” case but we always believed in his claim. Today’s judgment is a testament to his determination and courage, and importantly shows that justice can be obtained even in the teeth of the most determined opposition!”

Mr Wooster is claiming over a million pounds in compensation for his employment losses, reduction in pension, and injury to feelings. Stratford Employment Tribunal has already ruled that his compensation should be increased by 50% because the Council failed to adopt any procedure when it dismissed him. The compensation hearing is expected to be heard before the end of the year.

At the appeal hearing on June 18^th and 19^th, Adrian Lynch QC for the Council claimed that the age discrimination finding by the Employment Tribunal was perverse. He said that to have kept Mr Wooster in employment would have been outside its public duties and therefore unlawful because his position was in fact redundant. 

But the EAT ruled that while it would have been unlawful for the Council to have kept Mr Wooster in employment for the sole purpose of obtaining his enhanced pension rights,   the Council had deliberately ignored its own redundancy and redeployment policy because of Mr Wooster’s “impending entitlement to a pension”. The Employment Tribunal was entitled to find that this constituted age discrimination.

The hearing was told Mr Wooster had been employed by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for 33 years but he was made redundant just months before his 50^th birthday when he would have benefited from enhanced pension entitlements.

At the time of his redundancy, he was seconded to EastEnd Homes and was working as a Senior Consultation Officer on various estates in the borough. The Council tried to argue that in spite of his long service, he was in fact a temporary employee as a result of an earlier redundancy situation in 2001. As a consequence of this incorrect labelling and a “litany of failings”   he was denied several opportunities which would have saved his employment.  

Miss Toney, for Mr Wooster, told the appeal hearing that the Council deliberately refused to redeploy Mr Wooster when his secondment at East End Homes was coming to an end in December 2006.   This was despite an offer from Paul Bloss, Chief Executive of East End Homes, to pay 100 per cent of Mr Wooster’s salary up to July 2007 when he would have turned 50.    However this request to Maureen McEleney, Director of the Council’s Housing Management, fell on deaf ears.   Ms McEleney told Mr Bloss:

“Paul, if you are going to pay his salary then you can pay his bloody pension when he is 50. If he goes now we do save the pension.”

Mr Wooster was dismissed on December 29^th 2006.

Mr Wooster followed in his father and grandfather’s steps by working at the council. Mr Wooster’s father Tom worked for London Borough Tower Hamlets all his working life as a Principal Officer.   Mr Wooster’s grandfather, John Wooster, was Mayor of Poplar, which later became incorporated in London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1965. Wooster Gardens in Poplar, E14, are named after Mr Wooster’s grandfather.

Please contact Helen Murphie at Royds Solicitors at 0207 583 2222 for more information.

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