Testimonials
"If you want to use the best Employment Lawyer, ask David. I used him with great success, so I can speak from personal experience. He tells you as it is and will always recommend him to people that are going through Employment issues."
Francis West
CEO, Security Everywhere
"David is second to none in his knowledge of English employment law. I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone facing an employment law issue in the UK."
Nicolas Boin
Legal Counsel, Lenovo
Expertise
David is an experienced employment lawyer with specific focus on employment-related issues with unusual legal and factual aspects to them.
He has over 20 years’ experience of all areas of contentious and non-contentious employment law including:
- Representation in Employment Tribunals, County Court, High Court and the Central Arbitration Committee Tribunal in contentious matters.
- Claims ranging from all types of discrimination, unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and whistleblowing, to those involving data protection, transnational and regulatory issues.
- Advice on the enforcement of restrictive covenants and non-competition clauses.
- Appeals to the upper Courts and Tribunals in Employment matters.
- Day-to-day preventative HR employment advice.
- Drafting of contracts, handbooks, policies and procedures.
- Advice on consultants and subcontractors, commercial agents and agency workers agreements, IR35 and CIS, the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 and the Agency Workers Regulations 2010.
- Redundancy and restructuring advice.
- Corporate transactional support including advice on the employment elements of mergers and acquisitions/TUPE transfers.
- Advice on individual and collective consultation with employees/unions, both locally and transnationally involving European Works Councils.
- Employee benefit work including share schemes (Enterprise Management Incentives, Company Share Option Plans, Employee Benefit Trusts and restricted and phantom share schemes).
- Data protection and Freedom of Information Act applications.
- Negotiating settlement agreements/termination packages.
- Providing in-house training courses on various topics such as data protection and diversity.
David Advises
- Corporate clients ranging from SMEs/start-ups to multi-nationals.
- Private clients/individuals of all levels up to transnational board level.
David has specific market experience in the financial, defence, technology and recruitment sectors.
Experience Highlights
Recent matters include:
- A whistleblowing claim against a multinational employer relating to anti-competitive behaviour;
- Advising numerous individuals on departure from roles and new hiring terms in the technology and Cyber security market;
- Advising on departure of an IT sector executive on departure from a large technology multinational, including assisting with IP retention issues;
- Acting for a Respondent in a complex equal value claim in Employment Tribunal;
- Obtaining a contract continuance order in a whistleblowing claim based on the right to work from home due to COVID 19;
- TUPE advice on a £45 million transaction;
- Acting in the termination of employment of the compliance individual for a multinational financial institution accused of insider dealing;
- Assisting with the removal of two director shareholders from a group of companies and defending contingent claims under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006;
- Acting for an executive of a not-for-profit legal institution in disciplinary proceedings involving multijurisdictional issues;
- Successfully defending individuals in the recruitment sector against injunction proceedings to enforce non-compete restrictive covenants;
- Successfully bringing injunction proceedings against a departing director for breach of restrictive covenants and director’s duties.
Notable cases:
- Catanzano v Studio London Ltd (In Administration) UKEAT/0487/11/DM on whether individual respondents to a claim were jointly liable for a discrimination award and whether the uplift to compensation for breach of the ACAS Codes applies to individual Respondents.
- Thomas v Samurai Incentives & Promotions Ltd [2013] UKEAT 0006/13/RN on amendments to claims.
- Emerson Electric European Works Council v Emerson Electric Europe Central Arbitration Committee EWC/13/2015 19 January 2016: the first successful application in the UK for breach of a European Works Council agreement.
- Kocur v Angard Staffing Solutions Limited [2019] EWCA Civ 1185, [2020] ICR 170: the first Court of Appeal case on the Agency Worker Regulations 2010, deciding the meaning of the “duration of working time”.
- Verizon European Works Council and Jean-Philippe Charpentier v The Central Management of the Verizon Group UKEAT/0053/20/DA: the first fine in the UK for breach of a European Works Council agreement.
- Frewer v Google UK Limited [2022] EAT 34 on the anonymisation of a respondent’s clients and redaction of information from material in the Employment Tribunal, and the requirement for open justice in a whistleblowing case.
Career History
Previous Law Firms
- Greenwoods GRM LLP
- Laytons LLP
- Cubism Law
- BP Collins, Gerrards Cross
- Magrath & Co
Memberships
- Employment Lawyers Association
Education
- Brunel University (1991–95)
- College of Law Chester