Drafting Settlement Agreements
Employment Law Solicitors supporting SME owners
With the cost of living rising, and businesses still adjusting to a post-Brexit and COVID era, employers have started reviewing their outgoings. Often, wages are a business’s largest expense. As a result, an increase in redundancies has been forecast.
If you are faced with making tough decisions, Attwells Solicitors are here to help. We support business owners with practical legal business advice from SMEs to large corporations.
Therefore, if you are thinking about making employees redundant or undertaking pre-termination negotiations please call us. Equally, if you need support with HR issues Attwells can help. We can support your business with finance agreements, shareholder, partnership agreements, mergers, and joint acquisitions.
What is a settlement agreement?
Settlement agreements (formerly called compromise agreements) are legally binding agreements that set out the full terms of an agreement between an employer and employee, where an employee agrees to sign away their rights to bring a claim against their employer in return for a cash sum.
Typically, settlement or compromise agreements are offered to employees when a dispute in the workplace arises, a redundancy process is being undertaken or when employee misconduct is alleged. But, they can also be used when settling potential or actual Employment Tribunal claims.
Drafting settlement agreements for employees
Typically, drafting settlement agreements for employees can be done in two ways – in a short or a long-form agreement. A shorter agreement is suited more for less complex terminations for employment. For example when an employee may have been employed for a short period of time. Whereas a long-form agreement is for complex terminations, for example when shares or other benefits are involved or if the employee was long serving.
Therefore, due to the nature of employment law, we would always recommend you seek legal advice before discussing the matter with staff or documenting the process. Our Employment Law team is always happy to help and will have a free initial chat with you to discuss the matter.
Recommending Attwells to your employees
For larger businesses that may already have a retainer with a law firm or an in-house legal team, your employee will need to seek independent legal advice. This means the law firm acting for you cannot act for your employees. In this case, we’d hope you would recommend Attwells Solicitors.
We will review your employee’s settlement agreement for £250.00 plus VAT within 24 hours of receiving the agreement.
If the agreement is sent over on a weekend or bank holiday, this will take a little longer.
Daily, he advises employers, employees, independent contractors, businesses and individuals in contentious and non-contentious matters, regularly appearing at Employment Tribunals.
What you can expect when instructing Attwells Solicitors
Everything you need to know about redundancy
The last two years have made a marked difference to the business landscape, both locally and nationally. As a result of the pandemic, there has been an increase in redundancies, with many employers having [...]
Constructive dismissal: can an employer just apologise & make it all better?
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has recently held that it remains the case that once a fundamental breach has been committed (allowing an employee to resign in response), it cannot be cured, no matter [...]
Mandatory vaccinations for care workers
There have been pages and pages of speculation in recent months regarding the government's and indeed employer’s approach to vaccinations and whether staff will be forced to have them. Indeed, I myself have kept [...]
