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ONLINE EVENT: How to avoid risks in customer agreements and supply chains during Covid-19

Hosted by Advanced Manufacturing Forum, Partner, Matt Cormack discussed in this webinar how to avoid risks associated with your customer and supply chain contracts during this challenging Covid-19 period.

The webinar covers common questions such as:

  • Can force majeure excuse me or my suppliers from paying on time?
  • What are the risks to my business if I can’t perform on time due to Covid-19?
  • What will happen to my contracts if the Government takes steps to require me to close down my facility?

To watch the full recording, please click here. (To note the recording begins at 10 minutes)

If you have any follow up questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of our lawyers detailed below or use our ‘ask us a question‘ feature.

Related FAQs

If an employee refuses to wear a face mask at work, can I discipline or dismiss them?

In appropriate cases, disciplinary action and then dismissal may be fair if an employee refuses to wear a face covering in the workplace. For example, if this is in breach of the government guidance or if  employer has issued a reasonable management instruction to this effect due to an identified health and safety risk.

It is important that employers use a fair and reasonable procedure when deciding whether to discipline and/or dismiss an employee and that its actions does not unlawfully discriminate against employees who have legitimate reasons for not wearing masks, such as those individuals who have health conditions like asthma.

What measures are being implemented to protect residential property tenants?

On 18 March 2020, the Government announced that it would pass emergency legislation which would prevent landlords, both social and private, from bringing possession proceedings against tenants who are unable to pay their rent. The Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, stated that “no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home, nor will any landlord face unmanageable debts.”

The announcement came after several organisations, including housing charity Shelter, expressed concerns that more than 50,000 households could face possession proceedings due to the economic uncertainty following the Covid-19 outbreak.

What should an employer do when an employee has been told to self-isolate under the coronavirus Test and Trace scheme?
  • Do not require them to work
  • Continue to communicate with and support them
  • Allow them to work from home, is there alternative work for them to do if they can’t do their work from home
  • Offer SSP or allow them to take holiday if they want to.
Will site visits, hearings and inquiries still take place?

Due to the new guidance on social distancing and remote working, the Planning Inspectorate initially stated that site visits, hearings and inquiries would be cancelled. However, there is very much a push from the Secretary of State to keep the planning system moving notwithstanding the requirements to adapt to new ways of working. The Government now expects all hearings to be conducted virtually and where a virtual hearing is not possible, the expectation is that alternative arrangements will be put “speedily” in place and in accordance with social distancing requirements.

The Planning Inspectorate have been exploring ways of conducting hearings and inquiries remotely using technological means and conducted their first “digital” hearing on 11 May .

The Business and Planning Act 2020, which entered the statute books on 22 July 2020, includes provisions which allow more flexibility in relation to how appeals are determined including an ability for the Secretary of State to decide to adopt a procedure which is a combination of written representations, a hearing and/or an inquiry.

Site visits have re-commenced where it is safe to do so. The Inspectorate is looking at whether a site visit is necessary and has conducted a trial of “virtual site visits” where sites are assessed by means of photographs or video evidence.

The Planning Inspectorate have subsequently been scaling up conducting digital hearings, which also includes holding virtual local plan examination hearings.

Do I need Planning Permission to change the use of a warehouse or factory unit to a temporary mortuary?

Mortuaries are a sui generis use, unless ancillary to some other use of land, a hospital for example.

Sui generis uses are not within any Use Class. Consequently planning permission is required for the:

  • Change in the use to a sui generis use
  • Subsequently for the change in the use to an alternative use, whether that be another sui generis use or a use within a Use Class

Acknowledging the above, if the scale of the use is above de minimis, planning permission is likely to be required to change the use of a warehouse or factory unit into a temporary mortuary.

Should planning control be breached, a local planning authority must decide whether to take enforcement action or not. That enforcement is discretionary was recently reiterated in a Ministerial Statement issued on 13 March 2020 a link to which is below.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2020-03-13/HCWS159/

Depending on the form of the enforcement action, there could be a right of appeal.