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Melanie Pimenta

Associate

Melanie Pimenta

Associate

“Absolutely first class service. Extremely prompt, and useful advice throughout my engagement with Melanie Pimenta at Clarkslegal.”

Google Review

Melanie is a associate solicitor in the employment team, who acts for businesses and individuals. She is an experienced advocate having undertaken over 130 hearings including eight final hearings at the employment tribunal.

Melanie uses this expertise when she advises clients on both contentious and non-contentious matters, including unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing and day to day HR enquiries such as grievances, disciplinary hearings and redundancies amongst other queries. She has substantial experience drafting policies, contracts and settlement agreements and has negotiated the resolution of a wide range of disputes.

Melanie also advises individuals and businesses on a range of privacy and data protection matters, including audits to ensure compliance, data protection policies and procedures (including DSARs and data breaches) and enquiries relating to the UK data protection legislation. She has recently advised a client on implementing an international data transfer agreement (IDTA) with consideration of a transfer risk assessment.

Her recent experiences include: implementing a European-wide strategy to prepare businesses for ongoing data protection compliance, advising on the everchanging Covid-19 legislation and successfully defending a claim for unfair dismissal from initial instruction to advocacy at the four-day final hearing.

Prior to joining Clarkslegal, Melanie trained and worked in-house at G4S, the world’s largest security company, for over 7 years. She managed employment issues for around 35,000 staff.

Working in-house has enabled Melanie to develop commercial acumen, sector knowledge and formulate practical and innovative solutions to clients’ legal queries.

Read, listen and watch our latest insights

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  • 24 November 2017
  • Employment

Failing to evidence right to work is not an excuse to dismiss an employee

In Baker v Abellio London Ltd, the EAT overturned the ET’s original finding of a fair dismissal for illegality. The ET had accepted that a Jamaican national with the right to live and work in the UK was fairly dismissed after his employer had suspended, and eventually dismissed him, after failing to provide documentary evidence of his right to work.

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  • 24 November 2017
  • Employment

Union bids for recognition with end user not employer

This week a trade union, IWGB, has applied for statutory recognition to represent a group of receptionists, security officers and porters who work at the University of London even though these workers are employed by Cordant Security, a facilities management company with the contract to provide services to the University.

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  • 17 November 2017
  • Employment

Pension scheme did not discriminate workers

In Dr Parker v MDU Services Ltd, the claimant alleged that her employer’s pension scheme indirectly discriminated against workers who had a combination of full and part-time service.

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  • 17 November 2017
  • Employment

Deliveroo: Late substitution leads to a win against the run of play

The Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) has finally given its decision on whether a particular group of Deliveroo riders – those in the Camden/Kentish Town area of North London who are paid per delivery – are workers of Deliveroo or are independent suppliers of services to Deliveroo.

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  • 13 November 2017
  • Employment

Will Uber work in the area again?

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has today upheld the ET decision that when the Uber drivers were in the work area, available for work and with Uber app switched on, they were workers with rights to national minimum wage, sick pay and holiday pay.

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  • 13 November 2017
  • Employment

Michael Sippitt comments on Uber losing UK legal appeal against drivers’ rights

Taxi-hailing firm Uber has lost its appeal on Friday (10 November) against a ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers rather than self-employed.