Legal Aspects of Business: Letter of Advice on Compulsory Retirement and Age Discrimination

RUNNING HEAD: ADVICING LETTER
Legal Aspects of
Business
Letter of Advice

ADVICING LETTER
(Date)
Mr. John
Restaurant Owner
(# Address#)
Letter of Advice
Dear Mr. John
Re: Legal implication of compulsory retirement and age discrimination at office.
This is a legal advice in context of the facts of the case apprised to us by you (Mr. John), our
client. The situation revolved around the age discrimination laws applicable in UK. This is with
reference to the facts of the case apprised to us by the client, Mr. John (the recipient). The
analysis of the facts highlights the situation where the steps taken by the client, revolve around
the age discrimination laws of UK. This legal advice is focused on elucidating the best possible
course of action for the client, while dealing with their present employee, Mr. Williams, who is
approaching retirement age, but is not ready to retire. The letter would describe the reasons why
the given advice is in favor of client and would help in clarifying the negative repercussions of
not following the given advice, based on the applicable legislation.
Background
To safeguard and lawfully protect people from discrimination at the office and in broader
community, The Equality Act (EA) was introduced in 2010. It is a law that protects an individual
from discrimination. Discrimination on the basis of race, faith or belief, age, race disability, or
sex, all are covered under the act. Various provisions were introduced in this act that ban
discrimination against adults based on age at workplace. After the commencement of this act,
discrimination based on age was declared as unlawful unless; either the practice is subject to
certain exception from ban or excuse can be shown for such discrimination. The ban on
discrimination based on age is intended to guarantee that the new legislation only prohibits
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ADVICING LETTER
damaging treatment resulting in age- related truly unfair discrimination. The following case
study will describe about the laws relating to the age discrimination in UK, various acts passed to
abolish this practice, relevant case laws touching the point and Equality Act 2010.
Issue
The main issue in the present scenario is whether John can force William to resign from office
without his consent and will?
Rule
Age discrimination means to treat an employee less favorably due to his or her age. To prohibit
this practice of age discrimination against the persons who are above the age of 40, The Age
Discrimination in Employment Act was passed in 2010 (Wadham, et al., 2012). As per Section 5
of The EA 2010, one must not be discriminated against age because:
 One’s belong to or not to particular age
 Discrimination by perception i.e. Someone assumes that one is or is not a specific age or
age group
 Discrimination by association i.e. One is connected to someone of specific age or group.
Various previous statutes were amended as well as various changes were made in the previous
act regarding retirement and age discrimination (Hepple, 2014). Major changes in default
retirement age provisions are as follows:
 Para 8 of schedule 9 of the EA 2010 was repealed, which implies that, subject to
transition provisions, it is discrimination for an company to retire a worker who is 65
years of age or older.
 Different parts of Employment Rights Act, 1996 were modified to imply that retirement
is no longer a just ground for removal and thus section 98ZA-98ZH no longer applies to
assessing the fairness of dismissal.
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