With Bradley Wiggins’ recent Tour de France and Olympic Time Trial wins, and Team GB’s cycling team having a fantastic home Olympics, cycling is becoming more and more popular as both a leisure activity and a means of transport. As its popularity increases, there will no doubt be more legal ramifications.
As such, Prolegal have kindly taken some time to answer a few of the more common cycling questions relating to the law.
At Prolegal Limited we undertake a significant number of personal injury claims each year.
Some of those clients are either contemplating divorce or are going through a divorce. Naturally of interest to them is how their personal injury award will be dealt with as part of the divorce proceedings. In effect, should an award of damages for personal injury be regarded as a financial resource available for distribution between the parties?
With land in short supply in our towns and cities, property developers and town planners are acutely aware of the need to construct high rise buildings – often on small, overlooked plots of land to make a development profitable. Notwithstanding the struggle to secure development funding and all necessary planning consents which increases overall costs, developers are also being stung by claims that the construction of these high rise buildings are blocking out the natural light reaching neighbouring properties.
As London 2012 ends its first week, the fear of the city being overwhelmed has fortunately not come to pass. The order and calm will come as a relief to many Londoners, and will certainly impress our international guests, but for cycling Londoners the true ‘Olympic legacy’ may be a bitter taste of what might have been.
In 2007, Sustrans made projections of how the 2012 Olympics would fuel the development of ‘green’ cycle and walking routes throughout the capital. Not one of these proposals came to fruition while more contentious schemes ballooned in cost. The realised vision of the London Games is marked with a particular disinterest in accommodating cyclists. With the controversial ORN Olympic Lanes now in force, the Olympics are pitting cyclists against a gauntlet of temporary routes and pockets of congestion while offering few exemptions or bypasses for bikes.
Given the on-going recession, tenants are increasingly looking to exercise break clauses in their leases to get out of occupying expensive premises. Understandably, landlords are making it increasingly difficult for tenants to exercise these rights knowing too well that it could take many months to get a new tenant for their premises, probably at much lower rents.
Proposed changes to employment law may tempt employers to have frank discussions with employees, offering them a settlement to leave employment rather than face a fair disciplinary or capability process. The government has proposed an additional section to the Employment Rights Act 1996, an addition which would prevent an employment tribunal from considering private offers or discussions in unfair dismissal claims.
In the current draft of the bill, any offers and negotiations made to terminate an employment would become ‘protected conversations’ and inadmissible as evidence to a tribunal. The government hopes that removing the examination of private discussions from proceedings will simplify the tribunal process.
Outgoing employees are increasingly subject to employment terms restricting contact with their former clients. While companies accept employee turnover as par for the course, they generally take a dim view of leavers poaching their business.
Restrictions usually take the form of non-solicitation clauses and non-dealing clauses. Whether an employee is moving to a competitor or setting up on their own, these clauses provide a useful means for former employers to protect their interests.
In a turn against traditional reports of higher divorce rates in January and September, my colleagues and I at Prolegal have seen a surprising increase in divorce enquiries in the month of June.
Spikes in divorce enquiries usually arrive after holiday periods, with couples either reaching a breaking point from extended time together or sticking it out to avoid upsetting family gatherings. Yet, couples are now seeking to avoid the hassle altogether.
In this new part of the blog we will feature articles written by solicitors from the Contact Law network.
These articles will discuss interesting recent legal issues and cases.
