Swine flu mass staff absence could relieve companies of their contractual obligations
By David Woods Thursday, 23 July 2009
A swine flu pandemic could lead contracts to be "meaningless", a legal expert has said.
Further Reading
- Flu costs the British economy £1.35 billion
- Swine flu: Local councils are failing in their duty to help small firms prepare for an epidemic
- Forcing swine flu vaccinations on staff could be a legal minefield for employers
- Swine flu: Employers prepared to close their premises to stop spread of virus
- Swine flu: A quarter of employers not fully prepared for changes to sickness self-certification
- Working Time regulations implementation should be postponed because of swine flu implications
- Government must help SMEs cope with swine flu, says Federation of Small Businesses
- Unemployment and sickness benefit payments could be transferred to private insurance sector
- British Chambers of Commerce to host swine flu interactive web seminar
- Swine flu call-centre to open in London offering 800 temporary jobs - including HR roles
- Swine flu absence set to cost business £8.6 billion
- Swine flu: Employers could face fines for not protecting staff from the virus
- CIPD backs plans to allow staff with swine flu to self-certificate for up to 14 days
- Health and wellbeing: Healthcare provision - Healthy competition
- One in 10 employers still not prepared for swine flu
- Don't panic over swine flu, TUC boss warns
- How should HR departments handle fears of a swine flu pandemic?
- Employee who may have been in contact with swine flu is asked to work from home
According to David McIlwaine, partner at Pinsent Masons, commercial contracts carry clauses known as force majeure, which means in the occurrence of major unforeseeable events outside of either party's control - such as mass staff absence - companies are relieved of their contractual obligations.
McIlwaine said: "If suddenly half your workforce is off sick and you are a major IT services company and obliged to deliver certain service levels then you might invoke the clause. It becomes even more difficult because probably your customer is operating with staff working from home."
According to Pinsent Masons, if an employer decides to employ the clause, it will be up to the courts to decide if the incident qualifies or not.
McIlwaine added: "If a government declares a state of emergency, for example, or if it says that people should not go to work, then that could have an impact, as could the definitions given. Whether the Government calls it a pandemic could be important."
Latest Stories from Management Today
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
E-mail
Stumble Upon
Twitter
Send to a friend
Additional Information
Management Jobs
