What's new in the world of work? June - October 2025

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Oct 24 2025

Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter, where we provide essential insights into the evolving landscape of employment laws!

In this edition, we are happy to share with you a few off-the shelf materials that we have pulled together for our clients, including a briefing on the legislative landscape of AI in the workplace, and two comprehensive guides: one on mass redundancies and another on restrictive covenants. We also included important legal developments, alongside a recap of our most recent blog posts.

Enjoy the read, and please feel free to reach out to your usual Freshfields contacts if you need any further information!

Global

AI in the workplace – In an employment context, AI is quickly becoming a valuable tool for recruitment, work allocation, employee monitoring and many other aspects of the working relationship. However, when AI is improperly trained or used, various risks may arise, and employers should be cautious about them. AI developers recognise the value that regulation can bring through increasing safety and trust in the systems they build and, in some cases, have made voluntary commitments. However, the approach to regulation has been varied to date.

Our briefing, ‘AI in the workplace: the changing regulatory landscape’, explores the changing AI regulatory landscape, with a particular focus on the European Union, the UK, the US, China, Japan, Singapore and India.

Implementing mass redundancies – Global employers must understand the diverse legal nuances of mass redundancies, often triggered by skills shortages or technological change. EU Directive 98/59/EC mandates worker consultation and support for collective redundancies implemented by employers in the EU, but significant legal variations persist.

Our updated guide ‘Implementing mass redundancies in Europe and Asia’ highlights some of the key legal features of collective redundancy exercises in a number of European and Asian jurisdictions. We attempt to answer many of the questions you might be faced with when having to implement a collective redundancy project and to help you navigate the legal risks and likely challenges that may arise in that context, by outlining legal thresholds, information and consultation requirements, procedural steps, selection criteria, costs, and consequences of non-compliance.

Protect your business with restrictive covenants – The war for talent remains high on global employers’ agendas. Companies often rely on restrictive covenants, like non-compete clauses, to protect their workforce. However, these covenants are legally challenging due to strict, varying requirements across jurisdictions and increasing scrutiny from competition authorities globally.

Employers wanting to use such restrictive covenants need to be conscious of the different approaches to these covenants taken by legislators and courts across the globe and to understand how best to put in place protection in each of the jurisdictions in which they operate.

Our guide ‘Protecting your business with restrictive covenants’ considers these issues in several jurisdictions across Europe, Asia and the US and provides guidance on how best to protect your workforce using restrictive covenants, and non-compete provisions in particular.

EU

Pay transparency – The EU Pay Transparency Directive (PTD ), which Member States must transpose into national law by June 2026, aims to enforce the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value and to close the gender pay gap through enhanced transparency and stronger enforcement mechanisms. While more and more businesses are starting to prepare for the PTD, implementation by Member States is still ongoing. So far, only a few countries, e.g., the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Sweden, Malta, Slovakia, and Belgium (the latter for public sector only), have proposed draft laws implementing the PTD into national law.

Country update – The Netherlands: To ensure a careful implementation with minimal administrative burden for employers, the Dutch government has decided to postpone the planned entry-into-force date. Instead of 7 June 2026, the new date is now set for 1 January 2027. This means that employers with 150 or more employees will be required to report on gender pay gaps for the first time only in 2028, in respect of the 2027 calendar year. For employers with 100-149 employees, the timeline remains unchanged: their first report will be due in 2031, based on the 2030 calendar year.

In the meantime, the comparative cross-country Guide on Pay Transparency that our team co-edited with the International Employment Lawyer remains available. It provides a comprehensive overview of remuneration disclosure rules across 24 jurisdictions worldwide, as well as advice on how to mitigate risk and create more transparent and equitable workplaces.

EWC – The current draft for the revision of the European Works Council (EWC) Directive aims to strengthen the rights and effectiveness of EWCs across multinational companies in the EU/EEA. It is expected to be formally adopted by the Council of the European Union, following its approval by the European Parliament on 9 October 2025. The adopted Directive will then be published in the Official Journal of the EU.

The draft EWC recast Directive significantly strengthens employee rights. Most importantly, it abolishes the Article 13 exemptions (i.e. removal of the exemptions for legacy agreements), thus compelling hundreds of previously excluded companies to comply with enhanced EWC standards.

In addition, the new rules mandate timely and meaningful consultation, requiring management to give a reasoned response to the EWC’s opinion before final decisions are made on broadened 'transnational matters'. Furthermore, the Directive ensures stronger enforcement with clear financial penalties tied to company turnover and guaranteed EWC access to justice, funded by management. Finally, companies must provide the EWC with sufficient financial resources, including unlimited expert support and training, and aim for gender balance in the negotiating body.

You can read in more detail the main aspects of the draft in our blog post here.

UK

Employment – The Employment Rights Bill is poised to become one of the most transformative pieces of UK employment legislation in recent decades, introducing sweeping reforms across a wide spectrum of employment rights. The Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent in late October / early November 2025, with consultation and implementation timelines staggered through to 2027.

Our dedicated webpage sets out a high-level summary of the key provisions in the Bill. It is accompanied by a briefing, which discusses each provision in more detail, explains recent amendments, and comments on the practical implications for employers. As significant consultations are published and implementation dates approach, the webpage will serve as a central hub for all Freshfields content relating to the Bill.

Pensions – The Pension Schemes Bill is making some very important changes to UK workplace retirement benefit provision. The Bill is likely to become law in early 2026, with consultation and implementation timelines staggered through to 2030. It is likely to have a considerable impact on DC plans, which will be pushed to consolidate into larger schemes and may have their investment powers restricted. For DB schemes one important change will be to allow refunds of surplus assets to employer from ongoing schemes. We have published a number of blogs (see below) on key issues and will continue to do so as the legislative process continues.

Recent Publications

Artificial intelligence (in the workplace) and data

Pay and remuneration

Pensions

Pension Schemes Bill 2025: Return of surplus (9 October)
The Virgin Media “fix” is coming – but not for all schemes (1 October 2025)
Market volatility and UK defined contribution pensions: future risks for employers? (6 June)

People considerations for growing businesses

Is Syria open for business? People considerations for growing businesses (22 September)

Restrictive covenants

Reform of non-compete clauses in employment contracts - still on the horizon? (22 July)