What are the legal requirements when providing references, what are we obliged to do?

Posted in : First Tuesday Q&A NI on 4 March 2014
Arthur Cox
Arthur Cox
Issues covered:

There is strictly speaking no legal obligation on an employer to provide a reference for an employee or ex-employee and employers are therefore generally entitled to refuse to provide a reference.

There are however some limited exceptions to this general rule, such as:

1. Discrimination:
Failure to provide a reference because of one of the protected characteristics will entitle an employee to bring a claim for discrimination. The protection against discrimination extends to employees who are subjected to discriminatory acts which take place after the employment has ended.

2. Victimisation:
Where the employee (or ex-employee) has previously brought discrimination proceedings against the

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Back to Q&A's This article is correct at 02/09/2015
Disclaimer:

The information in this article is provided as part of Legal-Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.

Arthur Cox
Arthur Cox

The main content of this article was provided by Arthur Cox. Contact telephone number is +44 28 9026 2673 or email rosemary.lundy@arthurcox.com

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