IR35: Disguised employees & what to do about them

Date And Time

Tue, 9 March 2021
10:00 - 11:00 GMT

If you engage individual contractors to carry out their services personally through an intermediary e.g. a personal service company, you need to start thinking about whether the new IR35 regime applies to your relationship with the individual because from 6 April this year, the IR35 legislation is going to come into force for the private sector (no, sadly the pandemic didn’t push this one further into the long grass), and if you are not ready, you might live to regret it if HMRC comes knocking!

Signet Resources are being joined by Sarah Wilder & Verity Saxon from MPM Legal to discuss everything IR35 & how as an employer you can ensure you are ready for this, and also if you think you are a disguised employee, how to ensure you are prepared.

Sarah Wilder has been providing expert employment law advice to businesses since 2004. Sarah trained and worked at Macfarlanes LLP, a top 100 City law firm, before moving to Eversheds LLP (now Eversheds Sutherland). After a client secondment to Barclays Bank plc in 2007, Sarah moved to Barclays on a permanent basis in 2008, initially as lead employment lawyer for the UK Retail Bank, and latterly to head up Barclays’ employment tribunal litigation team, which she set up and ran before leaving to take up a role as lead employment lawyer for Great Britain for Coca-Cola Enterprises (now Coca-Cola European Partners) in 2014.

Sarah joined MPM in 2016 and became a Partner in the firm in 2018. Sarah has broad experience ranging from advising on complicated employee relations issues, to helping to shape the HR aspects of large business restructures, to dealing with tribunal and high court litigation and almost everything in between. Sarah’s particular focus is inclusion and belonging – as an expert on discrimination issues, she has seen first-hand the anguish and expense caused when things go wrong in this space, and is passionate about helping businesses to proactively avoid the kind of mistakes that can lead to grievances and litigation, whilst simultaneously setting themselves up for increased commercial success by building high performing, diverse teams.

Having been ‘the client’ for eight years of her career, Sarah understands the pressures of working in a large corporate and the importance of considering the full commercial picture when shaping a strategy for dealing with the employment law issues that arise for corporate clients.

Sarah’s practice is based on building strong, trust based relationships with clients. Sarah believes that lawyers add most value when they have a seat at the table – but that this seat can only be won through building trust and credibility with technically excellent, commercially focussed legal advice.

Outside of work, Sarah enjoys spending time with her husband and two young sons, the exhilaration of an early morning run along or swim in the Thames, the satisfaction of sparring with members of her Krav Maga club and the indulgence of eating good food in some of the wonderful pubs and restaurants her home town has to offer.

Verity Saxon is an employment law expert and tribunal litigator.

Recognised for being “a great listener, who asks good probing questions and makes clients think about all areas of risk”, she has a reputation for navigating her clients through their complex workplace issues with her no-nonsense, sound business approach to finding solutions.

Verity enjoys advising her clients on a wide variety of day to day employment issues. Her particular focus and expertise are around advising clients on complex and highly sensitive disciplinary and grievance issues. Her methodical and strategic approach has given her clients the tools to overcome some very difficult ER issues.

Verity also has specialist experience in working with clients on large scale projects (restructuring, outsourcing, changing terms and conditions and TUPE). Her expertise lies in advising clients on all aspects of projects work, from developing an HR project plan, to drafting the document portfolio, and offering practical guidance and resolutions right from the outset of the project planning, all the way through to the end of the process.

Verity has over 10 years’ of tribunal litigation experience, and her particular interest has been defending multi-discrimination claims. Known for her sound business acumen, Verity has a reputation of achieving successful results for clients.

Learning and training is an essential part of employee relations for Verity’s key clients, and her friendly and approachable style means she is regularly asked to provide clients with in-house training. Verity’s training sessions are practical, interesting and engaging. She creates bespoke sessions for her clients to fit the needs of the business and their key HR priorities.

When Verity is not busy running around after her three young children, she enjoys weight training and cooking something delicious for her family.

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