A new chief executive was appointed on a higher salary and they were asked to waive their right to their contracts to be linked.

The judge held that the termination of their employment was to prevent them becoming eligible so they should be paid the linked salaries and because they were in fact entitled to reasonable notice they got the options.

The Court of Appeal of Bermuda held that the employment was validly terminated and they were not entitled to participate in the share option scheme.

597-9; Malik v Bank of Credit and Commerce International SA [1998] AC 20; Johnson v Unisys [2001] 2 All ER 801.

This would run counter to the general principle that an express and unrestricted power cannot in the ordinary way be circumscribed by an implied qualification: see Nelson v British Broadcasting Corporation [1977] IRLR 148 (where it was sought to imply a restriction of location into a contract which contained an unqualified mobility clause).

‘The remedy was to award him damages by reference to the amount of the enhanced redundancy terms to which he would have become entitled if he had been offered the revised contract like his fellow permanent employees.