ACAS has published a comprehensive guide to settlement agreements with more information. However, there is another potentially important benefit to the introduction of the two-stage settlement agreement structure. The employee may be invited to reconfirm the guarantees given in the initial agreement, from the end of his employment relationship. A common and important guarantee in a settlement agreement is that the employee has not committed a negative or other breach of contract. If, as is often the case, this guarantee is given at the time of signing the settlement agreement, a subsequent breach of contract by the employee during the remainder of the employment relationship would leave the employer with only a claim for damages for damages resulting from that breach or any other appropriate remedy. if he has established the violation after the termination of the employee`s employment relationship and after the payment of the severance pay. In these circumstances, the employer would not automatically be entitled to claim the full amount of severance pay itself. In addition, the value of the claim that the employer would have against the employee would depend on the nature of the employee`s offence and might not correspond to the amount of severance pay. An example could be if the remedy for the employee`s breach of contract is a restitution order and not an economic loss – as could be the case if it is found that the employee deleted the company`s information during the rest of his employment, but did not use that information in a certain way, that caused the employer a demonstrable financial loss. If you hire a law firm to act on behalf of your employees, that firm will negotiate with your own legal team or lawyers if they have problems with settlement agreements. To make the process as simple as possible, it is important that you hire labour lawyers on your behalf, both in the design of settlement agreements and in advising on the extended settlement terms you are proposing. It has become increasingly common for employers to use two-step settlement agreements when there is a significant gap between the employee signing severance pay and the eventual termination of the employee`s employment relationship.
B for example after a period of garden leave or the employee who is engaged in the delivery of work for a significant period of time. This practice developed to deal with the possibility that between the signing of the settlement and the eventual termination of the employment relationship, events could occur that could lead to further legal claims against the employer as opposed to contractual claims and that these subsequent claims were not actually settled by the original settlement agreement. If the amounts offered are satisfactory, or if you ask the lawyer to move forward despite the fact that you could get more in a court or tribunal, your lawyer will sign the settlement agreement to ensure a prompt settlement of the amounts offered. Our senior management unit has extensive experience and know-how in dealing with settlement agreements. Since we regularly advise our corporate clients on settlement agreements, we are also well equipped to anticipate employer actions. .