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Lectures and workshops Business Law (BUAS) year 2
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All pre-recorded lectures and workshop questions of Business Law on the topics: employment law, property law, and intellectual property law
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Lecture (employment law 1)= rules and principles that govern the relationship between workers (employees), employers,
trade unions and the government
• The legal relationship (moral value) between employers and employees is governed
by law, there are mainly legal rules that regulate how employers and employees must
conduct themselves towards each other
• There is one particular principle, moral value/ethical rule, that underlies our
relationship of better or worse
One fundamental principle (the Golden Rule) = treat others as you want them to treat you
• A principle that is also found in non-religious philosophies and views of life
• If and when we live with other people, we find a way to relate to each other in the best
way to get along in this principle (the Golden Rule)
Social and economic perspective: Legal perspective:
• ‘Law’ of reciprocity = you will give • Neighbour principle = someone who
me something and I will give you is so closely and directly affected by
something in return your act that you ought reasonably
• Step away from the individual level, to have them in contemplation
it will not survive when we do not • Duty of care = take reasonable care
reciprocate in some way to avoid injuring and those that you
• Rationale: without reciprocity society can reasonably foresee are likely to
would not survive be affected by your actions
The neighbour principle (product liability) example: Donoghue vs Stevenson
o Mrs. Donoghue brought a claim against the manufacturer of the ginger beer, Mr.
Stevenson
o Mrs. Donoghue claimed that the manufacturer should pay compensation, because
her illness was caused by the snail bits in the beer
o Mr. Stevenson said that he was not liable, because there was no contract with Mrs.
Donoghue
o This court case was brought to court where it became a big part of the road to
develop the concept of duty of care in the tort of negligence
o During this case the concept changed, concluded that ‘love you neighbour’ in law
should become ‘you must not injure your neighbour’ = the neighbour principle
o Conclusion: the manufacturer has the responsibility to make sure that their products
should not contain dead crustaceans, animals, or anything else that could cause
harm
Employment law (set of rules) = the employer and the employee shall be obliged to act as a
good employer and good employee always act in reasonableness
The industrial revolution
Started in the UK and in the European continent, when the industry became mechanism
This resulted in the development of employment law, due to:
• Extremely long working days
• Extremely low pay
• Dangerous work and unsafe facilities
• Child labour
• Job insecurity
• Dirty and unsanitary working and living conditions
,Terminology
= fast number of rules in employment law
• Labour (law) = relationships between employer and employee organizations and
public authorities
• Employment (law) = relationships between employer and employee in both private
law and public law
Private law: employment contracts Public law: working conditions (health
(private parties) and safety regulations) and social
insurance schemes > public interest
(society) > government
Define the working relationship (employment)
Worker / employee = any natural person who has a contract to undertake paid work or
services for another person (natural or legal) that is not a customer or client
• Employment contract = contract between the employee and employer
• Co-contracting party: employer
Employed vs self-employed
• Employed: employee/worker
• Self-employed: contractor/provider of services
• Contract: contract for (personal) services
• Co-contracting party: client/customers
Workers/employees: Self-employers:
• Statutory protection against • You decide your price and time
dismissal spend
• Minimum wage • In bad times, you do not earn money
• Working hours restrictions • Need to create own insurance
• Statutory holidays (NL: 4 weeks a schemes
year) • Can continue working when they
• Insurance schemes (unemployment, want
pension, disability, sickness)
Parties in employment relationships
• Natural persons: employees and employers
• Legal persons: employer
o Same rights and duties as natural persons
o Foundation (example: BUAS)
o Can only be an employer cannot be employed by a company
Who is the employer?
Company/firm/business = is not a legal term, it is an economic term (aim: making profit)
• The company ‘Catering Solutions’ is a partnership
= a legal form, not a legal person or group of sole traders working together
In this case the employer is the natural persons that are registered as the owners of
the partnership
• The company ‘Heineken Nederland BV’ is a private limited company (legal person)
In this case the employer is Heineken Nederland BV
, Relevant law in employment law: civil law (The Netherlands) and common law
• Statute law (acts of parliament)
• Case law (decisions taken by court)
• Civil law (one part is dedicated to employment law in civil law)
EU law = legislation about employment law is binding on the member states
Different types of EU legislations:
• Treaty = contains some general rules on employment law (convention)
• Regulations = more specific
• Case law = highly specific about individual cases that concern employment
• Directives = more specific (most relevant)
Example: working time directive
‘To protect workers’ health and safety, working hours must meet minimum standards
applicable throughout the EU, individual EU countries are free to provide higher levels
of protection if they wish so’
Employment law generally aims to protect workers and gives rights to employers
The working time directive aims to do this, because excessive working time is cited as
a major cause of stress, depression, and illness
Minimum standards (not necessary to remember)
There are minimum standards to protect workers from working too long without any break or
too long on average in a week or period of time
• No more than 48 weekly working hours on average (including any overtime)
• A minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours in every 24 hours
• A rest break during working hours if the worker is on duty for longer than 6 hours
• A minimum weekly rest period of 24 uninterrupted hours for each 7-day period, in
addition to the 11 hours’ daily rest
• Paid annual leave of at least 4 weeks per year (4 times the number of weekly working
hours)
• Extra protection for night workers
When the working time directive was issued in 2003, the UK responded and mentioned the
Social Chapter = a protocol to the EU treaty (founded the EU), which does extends in an
extremely limited way qualified what you are devoting to some areas of social policy and it
retains unanimity (which is the common procedure unanimity) and it explicitly excludes
certain things: there is no question that there will ever be EU legislation on minimum pay or
on trade union rights
o The Social Chapter is a very limited piece of legislation and it is one of the reasons
that is used in the Brexit campaign
o UK presents unlimited and unregulated working hours as good for
employees/workers, because it gave people freedom to work as much and earn as
much money as people wanted
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