Employment and Contract Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Employment and Contract Assignment - Essay Example This practice is carried by many employers towards their certain employees with a certain status. Employers often keep a track of their confidential information and their relations with the customers. However, during this period the employee is refrained from cultivating any relationship with the customers as well as employers make sure that the employee does not gain access to any confidential information. This restricts the employee’s access to any sort of confidential information1. It is important to understand that â€Å"Gardening Leave â€Å"period takes place where the upper level management wants to keep the position of the company protected against any threatening agreement that could damage the company’s reputation. This can be further explained from a simple example when an employee gets a job with the company’s competitor and gives his employers a notice for leaving them. In such a scenario, the employer makes sure that the employee will not pass any confidential information to the competitor that would enable them to gain the competitive edge over the employers. However, during this period the employee still remains under the terms of his Contract of Employment as he is still being paid by his employer. Therefore, it depends on the wish of his employers if they want their employee to return to his work, grants him the access to the work related information or perform his usual duties as required by his employer2. Case Laws: Evening Standard Co Ltd. v Henderson [1987] ICR 588 William-Hill Organisation Ltd. V. Tucker [1998] IRLR 313 CA Standard health Care Ltd v Gorman [2010] IRLR 233 CA Symbian Ltd v Christensen [2001] IRLR CA SG&R Valuation Service Co LLC v Boudrais [2008] IRLR 770 Majority of the employers assumed that they have the authority to enforce â€Å"gardening leave† in any situation like this even if the clause of â€Å"gardening leave† is not mentioned in the Contract of Employment. This assumption ma y risk the employers’ reputation both ethically and legally. The threat of this supposition was also highlighted in the case of â€Å"William Hill Organization Ltd -v- Tucker 1998† in which the Court of Appeal denied to permit any order where the Contract of Employment lacks any garden leave clause and any other clause that entitles the employer to refrain any of his employee from work. At the same time the Court of Appeal declined the case that there is a general implied responsibility to grant work under the contract of employment, the Court agreed that in some conditions, where the employee’s responsibilities are specific and the skills required to fulfill those responsibilities are needed regularly, the employer’s commitment under the contract of employment might, in addition to payment of the fixed compensation, puts an additional contractual obligation to offer work3. In another case of Symbian Ltd –v- Christensen 2001, the Court of Appeal su pported the assessment in Tucker’s case and declared that a garden leave clause will only be imposed to the point if it is practical in nature. In Clark v Nomura International plc 2000 case, the employee was discharged on three months’ notice on garden leave. The employee’s removal from the office itself was not unlawful, but during the garden leave notice the employee was subjected for his