Nicola Whiteley

Partner

London

[email protected]

Read full biography at www.orrick.com
Nicola Whiteley, a partner in London and head of the London Employment Team, has more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of contentious and non-contentious employment law, with a particular focus on complex and/or cross border issues for multinational clients and on the Technology and Finance sectors.

Leading a "robust and highly capable" team in London, Nicola is listed and noted for her "business-oriented approach" in Who's Who Legal and recognised by Legal 500 as a "clever, experienced and thorough litigator", with clients praising her as a "great communicator" and "exceptionally capable". 

She is a member of the International Committee of the Employment Lawyer's Association.

Posts by: Nicola Whiteley

UK Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – The Details Have Landed

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One day after the Coronavirus Act was passed (which brought in the new SSP rules), we have finally received guidance from the Government on the announced Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and how it will work. There is no reference in the guidance to legislation and it is not clear whether there will be any, or whether HMRC will simply rely on this guidance. However, a lot of the questions we have all been asking for the last week have been answered. READ MORE →

UK Job Retention Scheme and Gender Pay Gap Reporting Update

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On 20 March 2020, in a bid to prevent mass job losses as a result of the coronavirus, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The government has agreed they will reimburse 80% of wages for all employees who are ‘furloughed’ but still on the payroll, up to a cap of £2,500 per month. READ MORE →

UK Government Agrees to Pay Employees’ Wages

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The UK Government has said they will step in and pay up to 80% of wages subject to a cap of £2500 per month for any employee who is not working but kept on payroll, rather than made redundant.  This is intended as an incentive to keep people in work and means that if an employer is considering redundancies or unpaid sabbaticals because its employees have no work due to the impact of the coronavirus, then provided these employees are kept on payroll instead, companies of all sizes will be able to apply to HMRC for these grants to keep paying their employees.  According to the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, the system should be up and running in a matter of weeks and be fully operational by the end of April. READ MORE →

The Coronavirus in the International Workplace – How do Multinational Employers React Appropriately?

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This updated overview provides multinational employers practical advice to develop their coronavirus response strategy on an international level and to ensure a safe working environment for their employees under local employment and labor laws of UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Stay tuned for updates as new developments occur.
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The Coronavirus in the International Workplace – How do Multinational Employers React Appropriately?

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This updated overview provides multinational employers practical advice to develop their coronavirus response strategy on an international level and to ensure a safe working environment for their employees under local employment and labor laws of UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Stay tuned for updates as new developments occur.
READ MORE →

The Coronavirus in the International Workplace – How do Multinational Employers React Appropriately?

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This updated overview provides multinational employers practical advice to develop their coronavirus response strategy on an international level and to ensure a safe working environment for their employees under local employment and labor laws of UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Stay tuned for updates as new developments occur.

READ MORE →

The Coronavirus in the International Workplace – How Do Multinational Employers React Appropriately?

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This overview provides multinational employers practical advice to develop their coronavirus response strategy on an international level and to ensure a safe working environment for their employees under local employment and labor laws of Germany, France, Italy, UK and Japan. READ MORE →

Good Work If You Can Get It: UK Government’s Response to Modern Working Proposals

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Some seven months after the publication of Matthew Taylor’s independent ‘Review of Modern Working Practices’, the UK Government has finally issued its response to the Taylor proposals: the “Good Work” response (the “Response”). Big news, you might think – but it’s fair to say that it promises more than it delivers.

Some of the headlines in the UK press would have you believe that there has been a large scale reform on UK employment rights and this was certainly the expectation– but this just isn’t the case, at least for now. The Government has stated that it is in agreement with 52 of the 53 recommendations from Matthew Taylor’s commissioned review, which considered how employment practices need to change in order to keep pace with modern business models (the “Taylor Review”), and it has acknowledged that, “all work should be fair and decent, with scope for development and fulfilment” – but the major points in the Response are all subject to further consultation and we are far from having concrete plans in place to effect change. READ MORE →

Orrick Establishes Automated GDPR Readiness Assessment Tool

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On September 6, 2017, Orrick announced the launch of its innovative online automated GDPR Readiness Assessment Tool. The tool helps organizations assess their state of readiness with the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into effect on 25 May 2018. The tool segments the GDPR into 14 workable themes and takes users through a series of questions relating to each theme. READ MORE →

Brexit: What Does it Mean for Employers in the U.K.?

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We set out below our best guess on where this leaves employees, management and HR in the UK.

Firstly as we have all heard repeatedly today, nothing is going to change immediately and that is the same for employment law.  It will be years before any changes are made and for the time being, everything remains the same and critically, no one has to leave.

Much of our employment law is just that – employment law driven solely by the UK.  We then have laws that have been enacted into UK law as a result of European directives – so those laws are the ones that may, at some point in the future, be targeted.  Our guess at Orrick is that changes where they happen will be focused on consultation rights, holiday pay and working time.  Worker involvement has never had the same traction in the UK that it has with our European counterparts and the UK has always viewed employee consultation with a degree of skepticism.  For this reason, we think it may eventually be a focus for change.

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