October 12, 2024

Tullio Corradini

Trusted Legal Source

Amendments to the DIFC Employment Law

Amendments to the DIFC Employment Law

In February 2021, the DIFC Authority announced a session period on the DIFC Work Regulation (DIFC Regulation No. 2 of 2019 as amended by DIFC Law No. 4 of 2020). The session paper arrived 1 year soon after the novel amendments to the DIFC Employment Law, supplying an prospect for clarification and deal with spots of uncertainty.  These amendments are reflected within the DIFC Law No.4 of 2021 (the New Regulation) helpful as of September 2021.  In addition, amendments ended up also created to the Work Laws governing Qualifying Schemes (the New Laws).

The New Regulation and the New Rules had been effective instantly and summarized as follows:

Additional Payments

Importantly, the definition of “Additional Payments” has now been narrowed to present a criteria for which a payment can tumble under the statutory definition.  An Extra Payment may well only be a single which is a discretionary and non-recurring payment or just one which is calculated by way of profits from the employer or an affiliate. An Supplemental Payment may then be excluded from the calculation of the DEWS contributions. Any reference to an arrangement among the employer and worker to limit an employee’s month to month standard wage will be null and void.

Shorter-term Employees

The New Legislation offers clarification for mounted time period workforce as very well as secondees.  Set expression workforce are now safeguarded whereby the period of the probationary time period may well not exceed 50 % of the contractual time period. In addition, numerous mounted expression contracts shall be treated in aggregate when analyzing an employee’s time period of work and calculating the employee’s legal entitlements.  The New Regulation extends safeguards to secondees and short-time period workforce delivering them with safety from discrimination and harassment.  In addition, secondees shall be subject to statutory obligations less than the New Regulation such as settlement agreements and the employer’s private information and facts.

Yearly Leave

Businesses and employees can agree an amount of accrued yearly go away to be carried more than, delivered that this is not considerably less than five days’ once-a-year go away which is the statutory minimal.

Health and fitness and Protection

Clarification has been furnished to businesses in which staff members are operating from dwelling. Employers are expected to present teaching, as fairly practicable, to employees on wellness and security though working remotely. Nevertheless, companies are exempt from implementing and making certain well being and security units are in put within just the employee’s home.

Limitation

The introduction of a limitation time period of 6 months for a declare to be brought stays in put. Even so, clarification has been built to verify that an staff could carry a claim all through the expression of their work. In addition, a claim may encompass a two-year retrospective time period and that all statements must be introduced inside six months of its alleged incidence, other than for claims relating to distinct payments.

Qualifying Strategies

A Qualifying Plan, its trustee and the administrator ought to be proven in the DIFC and as a result controlled by the DFSA, apart from in which 1) the “employer is underneath a statutory obligation in a different country to make pension…” or 2) the employer is making payments into a Group Plan on behalf of the workers.  Importantly, these payments must be similar, or in extra, to the contributions based mostly on the Main Rewards payable less than the New Law.

Summary 

The improvements to the DIFC Employment Regulation introduce measures to restrict any opportunity abuse to the initial intention of the legislation.  Employers and workers ought to be informed of these alterations and how they may well impact their work contracts, guidelines and handbooks.  Remember to let us know if we can aid you with the implementation of these alterations.

For even more info in relation to the amendments to the DIFC Work Regulation, you should get in touch with Joanna Stewart ([email protected])

November 2021