Responding to Martin Brinks’ inaugural CMJ article (that asked if corporate mediation was a prospect for the legal department and for organisations as a whole) Anna Doyle responded with a resounding affirmative. A professional career that has spanned over four decades took her on a route through national and international public services, working in areas as diverse as promoting legislation for social justice to supporting the safety of air navigation. Her first-hand experience of the challenge of responding to the ups and downs of daily working life in a multi-cultural setting has opened up new frontiers in awareness of the value of conflict resolution. Her work at EUROCONTROL has pioneered the role of corporate mediator and has embedded mediation and ethics in organisational life in a way that aims to bring added value and promote shared insight.

This article proposes mediation models in business school curriculum and for business implementation as part of risk assessment, risk management and conflict mitigation procedures. Through a solution-focused approach, the article sets forth a new methodology known as Economic Efficiency through Mediation (“EEM”) to combat asymmetric information risks and provide early conflict resolution pathways. EEM aims to act as a hedge instrument for commercial stakeholders facing uncertainty, imbalances in analyzing data, making decisions, and conflict challenges to their systems. EEM is a risk mitigation procedure for the business community to adopt and business schools to include in risk assessment and risk management programs. The EEM model will help improve efficiency, functionality and fluidity in the market place.

These cases concern the refusal by Luxembourg to grant financial aid to students studying in Luxembourg whilst living in France or Belgium, when they would be entitled to such aid under Regulation 492/2011 on free movement (pursuant to Article 45 TFEU), based on their family circumstances, were it not that the person employed in Luxembourg was not their father but their stepfather. The ECJ found in favour of the students.

Following consultations with its employees in accordance with the Finnish Codetermination Act (334/2007), a company informed the employees that it would close down its current office premises and move its operations, including all of its employees, to another location. An employee, whose employment contract expressly stipulated the location of the old office as the fixed place of work, refused to transfer and did not arrive at the new place of work after the transfer. The company considered the employee’s absence unjustified and terminated her employment with immediate effect. The Supreme Court held that an employer can, as an alternative to termination of employment, unilaterally amend material terms of employment provided it notifies the employees sufficiently clearly of the terms being amended, the time when the new terms would come into effect, the grounds for termination, and the consequences of not accepting the amendments.

A claim for compensation for discrimination was not excluded simply because the applicant did not have the ‘objective qualifications’ necessary for the job. According to the German General Equal Treatment Act (the ‘Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz’, or ‘AGG’), what is necessary for a compensation claim is a ‘comparable situation’. According to the latest decision of the German Federal Labour Court (the ‘Bundesarbeitsgericht’, or ‘BAG’) this can occur even if the applicant does not fulfill the general requirements to do the job.

The Austrian Supreme Court has held that the selection of employees for redundancy because of their entitlement to an early retirement pension constitutes unfair dismissal on grounds of direct age discrimination. Although it was accepted that individual employers (here the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) can pursue a legitimate aim within the meaning of Article 6(1) of Directive 2000/78/EC, the means to achieve that aim were not considered appropriate and necessary. The Court stressed that a balance must be struck between the interests of older and younger employees, taking into account that it is generally easier for younger employees to find a new job. In the case at hand, however, the employer had not managed to show that its redundancy selection programme met that requirement.

A Spanish Supreme Court decision issued on 17 October 2016 (no. 848/2016) declares employee terminations void because the employer failed to respect the proper collective redundancy procedures based on the thresholds provided by EU Directive 98/59. The thresholds in the Directive refer to the number of employees at the establishment, whereas thresholds under Spanish law refer to the whole company. In implementing the Directive, Spanish law had aimed at being more favourable to employees, but this did not happen on the facts of this case.

Under Article 8 of Directive 2008/94, if an employer becomes insolvent in circumstances where it previously withheld funds from an employee’s salary to pay into an occupational pension scheme – but then failed to make those payments – there is no requirement to exclude those funds from the scope of insolvency proceedings.

Mrs Tolley, a disabled UK national, emigrated from the UK to Spain in 2002, at age 50. Before she left the UK, because she was unable to prepare a meal for herself, she was in receipt of DLA (disability living allowance) benefits. These benefits were stopped when she left the UK, because under UK law, only residents are eligible. Mrs Tolley appealed successfully to the First-tier Tribunal. Its decision was upheld by the Upper Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. The Secretary of State appealed to the Supreme Court, which referred questions to the ECJ, all relating to Regulation 1408/71 on the coordination of social security legislation within the EU (now Regulation 883/2004). The ECJ found in Mrs Tolley’s favour.

In a much publicised case, Uber drivers have won a first instance employment tribunal finding that they are ‘workers’ and not self-employed contractors. This decision means that they are entitled to basic protections, such as the national minimum wage, paid holiday (under the Working Time Directive) and protection against detriment for ‘blowing the whistle’ on wrong doing. The decision could have substantial financial consequences for Uber, which has around 40,000 drivers in the UK but Uber has already confirmed that it will appeal the decision, so we are unlikely to have a final determination on this question for some time.