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Office banter could cost business billions, says A&O report

3 January 2013 | By James Swift

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An Allen & Overy (A&O) report has warned that office banter could cost UK businesses as much as £292bn in tribunal claims in 2013.

A&O asked more than 1,000 office workers whether they could easily draw the line between “banter and bullying” for the report and found that 80 per cent thought they could. But follow-up questions to respondants proved otherwise, according to the firm, which warned that “language, laws, diversity, cultural mores and office practices are not static; they’re constantly changing”.

Giving examples, the report states that although 46 per cent of survey respondents believed that it was not unlawful to display a calendar of semi-naked models, some people could feel that it creates an “intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive workplace environment” and lead to harassment claims with a potential £135bn cost to UK businesses.

Likewise, although 59 per cent of respondents said they did not think it was unlawful to swear, A&O said that in certain circumstances – when the swearing was based on a legally protected characteristic, like gender – it could lead to a discrimination claim, the likes of which could cost UK businesses between £114bn and £292bn in 2013.

A&O litigation employment partner Karen Seward said: “There’s a fine line between friendly, acceptable banter and unlawful harassment or discrimination…Time and time again, workers throw advice in this area into the political correctness box, not appreciating the litigation risks or the impact on individuals.”

The report is the first in a series of reports on the nation’s workers’ knowledge of workplace discrimination to be published by A&O. Reports on protected characteristics under discrimination law and workplace bullying will follow.

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Readers' comments (17)

  • Anonymous | 3-Jan-2013 12:38 pm

    £292bn? That works out at £10,000 for every working man or woman in the country. All paid out in 2013?
    A&O might need a larger employment team to deal with all that work.

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  • Rob Blackett | 3-Jan-2013 2:01 pm

    Is numeracy a legally protected characteristic?

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  • Tom | 3-Jan-2013 2:36 pm

    To Anonymous, I doubt whether the £292bn (which is in any event a top estimate) is all damages. That figure is likely to include the legal costs of defending claims (which are normally not recoverable in the tribunal) and, in particular, the cost in management time of dealing with the claim.

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  • Anonymous | 3-Jan-2013 2:44 pm

    Yes, its highly unlikely this would all be damages. Link to the report?

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  • Anonymous | 3-Jan-2013 3:02 pm

    £292 bn is presumably only if you instruct a firm charging Allen & Overy's rates, as opposed to one providing a semblance of value for money...

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  • Marc Daniels | 3-Jan-2013 3:28 pm

    Looks like a mistake in A&O's press release - perhaps substituting "billion" for "million", perhaps missing a decimal point? Either way, given UK GDP is only £2,500bn, the numbers are clearly out by two or three orders of magnitude.
    Bit embarrassing!

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  • j | 3-Jan-2013 3:44 pm

    Irony being that many partners in such law firms are going to be responsible for just such 'banter'... except maybe the semi-naked calendars?

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  • $$ | 3-Jan-2013 4:12 pm

    Seems like an astronomical figure! FDI into China is around $60bn each year. This £292bn equals 8 years of all the FDI into China...

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  • Ben | 3-Jan-2013 5:33 pm

    Ah, I see the utter b*llocks season is once again upon us. Special thanks to Karen Seward for pointing out the bleeding obvious. Who on earth is this aimed at? Does A&O really think that clients that can afford its fees have HR Departments that are not alive to the issues that she raises? Or is my local garage with the semi-nakes calendar suddenly going to spend 100k on defending an ET claim with A&O?

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  • val | 4-Jan-2013 1:04 am

    The world has gone mad.

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  • Anonymous | 4-Jan-2013 10:14 am

    Is someone able to please provide a link to this report?

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  • James Swift | 4-Jan-2013 10:29 am

    A&O sent The Lawyer the report, but it does not appear to be available online more generally. According to the firm, the potential cost to business (£292bn etc) was calculated using the base figure of 29.59m UK workers. If 59 per cent of respondents to A&O's survey said they believed blaspheming was not unlawful, A&O would take that percentage of the base figure (59 per cent of 29.59m) and multiply it by the average EAT award.

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  • Anonymous | 4-Jan-2013 12:00 pm

    So that's a completely unscientific piece of analysis? Why are you publicising something which is a patently flawed work of self-promotion?

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  • Anonymous | 4-Jan-2013 12:35 pm

    So really what A&O are saying is that banter is fine, however...unlawful harassment or discrimination could cost business billions

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  • Born to Eat Pizza | 5-Jan-2013 11:19 pm

    I think unlawful harrassment and discrimination could be worth trillions. Every business guilty of such naughtiness should pay £1000 in DUH tax on top of the victims compo. Within one year there will be no UK debt and we corporate lads can get back to doing nothing during the day of a completion so that we can have free pizza through the night and "complete" at 4am and everybody will be impressed even though there is no law in the transacgtional stuff we do and a trained chimp could do everything except cut up the pizza and pour the champers without spilling it.
    Ra Ra Ra I wear my lucky red braces for completions.

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  • Mutton Jeff | 9-Jan-2013 5:19 am

    "WARNING! Demonstrating a sense of humour in the office may cause hypersensitive PC idiots to freak out and sue you!"
    Get a grip, team UK. If calendars of scantily clad models could expose one to legal liability, time the law was changed.

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  • FmrCityLawFirmWorker | 10-Jan-2013 1:23 pm

    Aaah, the relief to know that in all of the PR departments in big law firms there are still chumps who think manipulated statistics of fear is the way to educate the masses...
    Anytime they want to have a genuine discussion, this topic will now forever be linked to their "292bn" comment...FAIL...

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