Mandatory Retirement - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

In October 2006 the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, the UK Labour Government introduced a Default Retirement Age, whereby employers are able to terminate or deny employment to people over 65 without a reason. A legal challenge to this failed in September 2009, although a review of the legislation was expected in 2010 by the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. This review has taken place and on 17 February 2011 BIS published the draft Regulations abolishing the Default Retirement Age. The draft Regulations were later revised and the final version was laid before Parliament on 1 March 2011. As of 6 April 2011, employers can no longer give employees notice of retirement under Default Retirement Age provisions and will need to objectively justify any compulsory retirement age still in place to avoid age discrimination claims.