In Matthews and others v Kent & Medway Towns Fire Authority and others, the House of Lords held that part-time firefighters were employed under the same type of contract as full-time firefighters.

Pensions analysis: On 16 December 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the relevant date from when time starts to run for a claim by a part-time judge to a pension under the EU Part-time Workers’ Directive (Directive 97/81), as applied by the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, SI 2000/1551 (PTWR), was the judge’s date of retirement, not the date on which each part-time appointment ended. In so concluding, the Supreme Court allowed the Appellants’ appeal and overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal.

Law360: A retired army reserve officer has won his discrimination claim against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) alleging that its refusal to let him join the armed forces pension scheme left him worse off than full-time military personnel.

A category of worker whose hours and days of work are less than a full time worker.

Part-time workers have the right not to be treated less favourably (see Less favourable treatment and the pro-rata principle below) than a comparable full-time worker (see Comparable full-time worker, below) in relation to certain employment-related matters under the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 (PTW Regs 2000), SI 2000/1551. They also have the right to request from their employer a written statement giving reasons for any less favourable treatment to which they have been subjected (see The right to a written statement giving reasons for less favourable treatment, below). Part-time workers are also protected against victimisation by their employer (consisting of subjecting the worker to a detriment or dismissing the worker) for having exercised or sought to exercise their rights under PTW Regs 2000 (see under Tribunal claims, below). In some circumstances, part-time workers may have the right to bring, under the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010), a claim for indirect discrimination, or an equality of terms claim, in relation to less favourable treatment they have experienced. Full-time employees who wish to change the terms of

Pensions analysis: In the case of O’ Brien v Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court unanimously decided to refer to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) the question as to whether Directive 97/81 concerning the Framework Agreement on part-time work, and in particular clause 4 of the Framework Agreement annexed to it concerning the principle of non-discrimination, require that periods of service prior to the deadline for transposing the Directive should be taken into account when calculating the amount of the retirement pension of a part-time worker.

This Practice Note contains references to case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). For guidance on whether EU judgments are binding on UK courts, see Practice Note: Assimilated law — Assimilated case law. Note also that while the UK laws implementing directives form part of UK domestic law, the directives themselves do not. For further information, see Practice Note: Assimilated law.  Many of the leading cases in the area of discrimination and part-time workers have been concerned with issues of sex discrimination and arose because the majority of part-time workers were women. Claims could therefore be brought on the basis of indirect sex discrimination although there was no specific protection for part-time workers. Those cases are discussed in the Practice Note: Sex discrimination for pension lawyers. This Practice Note discusses the key cases in which the courts have been concerned with claims relating to: • issues as between part-time and full-time workers, whatever the gender of the workers concerned. Such cases are typically

This Practice Note contains references to case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. For guidance on whether EU judgments are binding on UK courts, see Practice Note: Assimilated law — Assimilated case law. The legislative framework Two separate areas of legislation must be considered in the context of part-time workers and discrimination. The first area is the legislation relating to equal treatment of men and women. Historically, more women than men have worked part-time, so employment terms, including the terms of pension schemes, which are less favourable to part-time workers may well discriminate against women. The second area is legislation specifically aimed at protecting part-time workers. Equal treatment legislation Legislative provisions designed to secure equal treatment for men and women in relation to pension schemes have a lengthy history. The current domestic provisions are to be found in section 67 of the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010), which provides that a pension scheme which does not contain a sex equality rule will be treated as if it did. A sex

An employer cannot exclude a worker from membership of an occupational pension scheme on the basis of their part-time status.

Parties to an arbitration may wish to make an application to the arbitral tribunal for an award to be made on a specific issue that forms part of the claim, before the final award is made that addresses all the issues in the dispute. Such an award, dealing with only some of the issues in dispute, is commonly known as a ‘partial award’. A partial award is not only available on the application of a party; a tribunal may also, as master of its own procedure, decide that it will deal with certain issues by way of a partial award or awards. A partial award is final in respect of the claims it addresses. An example of a case in which a partial award was held to be final is Emirates Trading Agency v Sociedade de Fomento Industrial Privatewhere the respondent to the arbitration was prevented from challenging the final merits award, because it had not challenged an earlier partial award on jurisdiction. Subject to the parties’ agreement to the contrary, the arbitral tribunal

Where a leased circuit extends from one customer to the local exchange and the bandwidth on that circuit extends down to zero Hertz.

Partial breach describes a situation where a party fails to perform some, but not all, of its contractual obligations, or performs them defectively, without fully repudiating the contract. It is a descriptive expression used in contract law across England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, rather than a term usually defined in legislation.In practice, a partial breach often involves breach of an intermediate or “innominate” term, or a minor breach of a non-essential obligation. The contract generally remains in force, and the innocent party is usually confined to a claim in damages, rather than a right to terminate, unless the breach is sufficiently serious in its consequences to justify treating it as repudiatory.Courts assess whether a breach is partial or repudiatory by examining the nature of the term broken and the impact on the contract as a whole. In all four jurisdictions, common law and case law guide this assessment. The concept is important in advising on available remedies, risk allocation, drafting termination clauses, and deciding whether continuing performance might amount to affirmation of the contract.