Strange clause in contract for IB

[Lewis]

Got a new contract with a large IB. Clause in it says

"Breaks during assignments shall not exceed 10 days per 6 months of contract and can be required to take place in accordance to the clients needs."

That to me reads, no more than 20 days holiday/year. Agency says it means no more than 10 consecutive days holiday. What do you think? I don't want to limit my holidays. Agency is fairly large, they claim clause comes from IB.

All sounds odd to me.

There's also a 6 month defect fixing warranty clause and 14 days notice prior to holidays that also I've not had before. What do people think of these clauses?

[RichardCranium]

That to me reads, no more than 20 days holiday/year. Agency says it means no more than 10 consecutive days holiday.

As an employee of your LtdCo you have employee's rights.

The basics of holiday rights
There is a minimum right to paid holiday.

* you are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid annual leave (28 days for someone working five days a week)

Your employer is not allowed to give you less than the legal minimum.

So, if you want to object to the clause, point them at the above link.

Personally, I tend not to take any leave during a contract.

Edit: The contract is with your LtdCo, and not with you, yes? In which case, your LtdCo will have to send in a subbie.

Edit, edit: Link:

If you have your own company

If you have your own company or work through a limited company and use an agency then you are still protected as an agency worker. You can choose to opt-out of this protection but must do this before you are introduced to a hiring company by your agency. The opt-out has to be given by both the limited company contractor and the person actually doing the work (eg, if the limited company contractor engages its own workers).

[mavster07]

Its not very IR35 friendly that contract.

I would just ask to change the leave clause to reflect that all absences will be mutually agreed in advance. No limit should be applied. Make sure you have your substitution clause in there also.

On the warranty issue, six months is a long time and would depend largely on what work you do. If you are producing forex systems for a major bank then you may wish to support that type of thing. However, the client can often exploit such a clause to make it include anything and any amount of time to fix it. Therefore, I would 'ring fence' this by stating that all warranty work will be remedied on a 'paid consulting basis' (i.e. not free) and limit the free period to be something like 14 days. However, word of advice on warranty situations - make sure before you leave your contract that you have got the client to sign off ALL design / requirements type deliverables AND that they have accepted the assignment has been completed successfully. Even an email will suffice. By doing so, if the warranty element ends up going the wrong way (i.e the client tries to blame you for some major issue and force you to fix it for free, you have signed off deliverables to reference back to stating that they were happy). Its all about protecting your liability.

Final word of advice - check with your liability insurer that such a clause is acceptable. They may suggest suitable wording.

You can always use excuses like 'IR35 compliance' and 'Insurer Backing' to say to the client that the clauses needed changing so they are more evenly balanced.