Outlined below are the latest rights and duties for employees and employers.
‣ EU | ‣ France | |
‣ Poland | ‣ Spain | |
‣ UK | ‣ Switzerland | |
‣ Australia |
‣ Canada |
Latest on employee notice periodsEmployees in Canada are entitled to a notice period when their employment is terminated, the length of which depends on whether the contact expressly details the notice period or not. If it does, provided it is at least as long as the statutory minimum, this will be the period that is applied. Where the contract is silent on the matter it is open to the courts to determine what ‘reasonable’ length of notice should be applied. A recent case in Ontario has provided us with more insight into this issue. In Dawe v. Equitable Life Insurance Company, the court of first instance determined that Mr Dawes who was the Senior Vice President of The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada should be awarded a notice period of 30 months and commented that there was willingness to extend this to 36 months given the service! This was rather surprising given that most legal commentators had previously viewed 24 months as the ceiling on notice periods other than in cases of ‘exceptional circumstances’ Equitable Life appealed against the decision and won , the Ontario Court of Appeal reducing the notice period to 24 months commenting that the case did not present any ‘exceptional circumstances’ to warrant a higher figure. The appeal decision has reaffirmed an understanding in the legal fraternity that 24 months can once again be considered the upper limit for notice periods. The case also serves as a timely reminder that notice provisions in employment contracts are an absolute must. Confirmation that consent is not required for cross-border data transfersFollowing the high profile Equifax data breach, The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) opened an inquiry. In its report issued in April OPC concluded that international transfers of Canadian personal data to non-Canadian data processors should be supported by the data subjects consent. The findings were met with protest from various business sectors claiming that they were in conflict with the OPC’s own guidelines which do not require consent for transfers to international data processors. In reaction to the tension the OPC agreed to open a period of consultation to gather the comments and views of businesses to the matter. On September 23 the OPC announced that the consultation period was closed and given that most of the comments they received opposed the need for consent their decision was to keep the current guidelines unchanged on the issue – as a result consent is not required. |
If you would like to discuss how these changes could affect you or your business please contact Stuart Buglass.
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