Please note: These pages list current Law Department PhD Students. For completed PhDs, please see the PhD Completions page.
Email: l.e.mcgaughey@lse.ac.uk
Thesis Title: Public participation in corporate governance
Supervisors: Prof David Kershaw and Dr Eva Micheler
Research Interests: Comparative corporate law in the UK, US and Germany as it relates to public participation of the ultimate investors in companies.
Teaching Experience: Commercial Law (LL209); Property II (LL275); Contract Law, Labour Law (at King’s College, London) and Company Law (LL.M. revision classes at University College, London)
Recent Publications:
E McGaughey, ‘Unfair Dismissal Reform: Political Ping-Pong with Equality?’ (2012) Equal Opportunities Review, Issue 226 The government’s action of re-raising the fair dismissal qualification period by Ministerial Order to two years is vulnerable to judicial review, because it will have a discriminatory impact on people protected by the Equality Act 2010 and the EU Equality Directives. The House of Lords addressed the same issue in R (Seymour-Smith) v Secretary of State for Employment after the last time the qualifying period was raised. A better alternative to halt growth in unemployment is probably not allow employers to make it easier to make workers unemployed, but to pay regard to the workforce’s views when determining the fairness of dismissals. In any event, it appears relatively clear that the courts would not let UK governments continue to play political ping pong where equal rights are at stake. Click here for full text via SSRN
E McGaughey, 'Should Agency Workers Be Treated
Differently?' (2010) LSE Working Paper Series
The EU Temporary and Agency Work Directive created a right of equal
treatment on working time and pay for agency workers compared to direct workers.
This article asks, what justifications are there for any different treatment?
Using job security rights as an example, this article explores the framework for
regulation of employment agencies and the common law position of agency workers.
It highlights, first, that profit-making agencies were frowned on historically
by international law, and that principled regulation is required to prevent
abuse. It shows, secondly, that the common law test of ‘mutuality of
obligation’, that removes employment rights for agency workers, is legally and
logically unsound. It then illustrates, third, that a recently developed test
for implied contracts, which leads agency workers to have no employer at all,
pays incomplete regard to the full authority on contractual and statutory
construction. These loopholes are unfair and inefficient and amount to an
unjustified subsidy for agency work. Simple recognition is needed that agency
workers should not be treated differently, because work through an agency is
work like any other.
Click here for full text via SSRN
E McGaughey, 'Donoghue v Salomon in the High
Court' (2011) 4 Journal of Personal Injury Law 249
Chandler v Cape Plc decided that a parent company was liable for
asbestos injuries of an insolvent subsidiary's employee, because the parent
could exercise control over the subsidiary. This article recounts the case's
facts, assesses the reasoning and elaborates the potential implications. It
posits that this decision, aside from being based on sound authority, is
consistent both with limited liability as a restricted exception to the law of
obligations, only justified so far as creditors may truly and freely opt out,
and with the general law of tort, which holds people liable for the actions of
third parties when they may exercise control. Four main questions over the
implications are raised: can controlling parties be liable for any torts? Can
any directors or shareholders be liable? What possibilities are there for tort
claimants abroad to sue UK multinational parent companies? And how far beyond
shareholding might a controlling relationship extend?
click
here for access via Westlaw [ON CAMPUS] |
click
here for access via Westlaw [OFF CAMPUS]
Media Appearances:
