Long regarded as a leading practitioner and appearing in numerous reported cases, Antony has a huge breadth of experience in almost all aspects of Employment Law. His practice encompasses not only the core areas of statutory employment regulation such as unfair dismissal, redundancy, discrimination, whistleblowing, TUPE and working time, but also includes experience of some of the more obscure areas such as Agricultural Wages Order disputes.
In addition, he has extensive and long-standing experience of commercial and employment-related injunctions, especially in the areas of restraint of trade, garden leave and confidential information injunctions as well as strike injunctions. He has appeared in numerous ground-breaking cases, especially garden leave.
Antony is a talented advocate and skilled trial tactician with highly regarded cross-examining skills. Clients have frequently observed that his natural habitat is the courtroom and his career-long commitment to pro bono advocacy makes it perfectly apparent that he is quite definitely not ‘in it for the money’. He is equally at home acting for employers of any kind, large or very small, public or private sector or employees of any level and whether as individuals or collectively. In the last few years he has represented clients as disparate as:
- The bus drivers of the Isle of Man against the Island’s Department of Community Culture and Leisure in a dispute over changes to terms and conditions of employment;
- A very senior former executive in the Royal Bank of Scotland in a share options claim against the bank;
- The farming partnership of the son of the Eighth Duke of Wellington in an Agricultural Wages Order dispute;
- Public Health Wales in a large whistleblowing claim by a former employee;
- A telecommunications company in a complex ‘phone hacking’ and malicious prosecution claim brought by a former employee;
- An independent school in a very sensitive disability discrimination and victimisation claim brought by a former teacher;
- A former primary school teacher in claims against her former employer which involved appearances in the Employment Tribunal, Employment Tribunal and the Court of Appeal;
- A United Arab Emirates Sheikh accused of failing to protect his former ‘Technical Adviser’ from alleged acts of appalling torture and mistreatment at the hands of the Government of the United Arab Emirates;
- An assistant coroner in a part-time workers discrimination case;
- A decorative candle manufacturer in what was effectively a deeply personal dispute between two individuals who had previously been married to one another;
- A fierce dispute between a financial services company and two former employees who had ‘set up shop’ directly opposite in a town centre location and were poaching clients;
- A complex whistleblowing and discrimination case for a highway construction and maintenance company defending claims brought by a former employee with a background of witness intimidation/harassment and complaints to regulators and the press.
Antony has been involved in industrial dispute injunctions in various industries, including railways, buses, print media, aviation, and fire and postal services. He has also defended a multi-claimant dispute alleging dismissal for trade union reasons arising out of a long industrial dispute in the steel industry.
Antony has considerable experience of non-contentious employment issues and has experience of working directly with HR professionals as well as in-house lawyers.
Antony also lectures and writes articles on various aspects of employment law.