Employment 2025

GIBRALTAR Law and Practice Contributed by: Nick Cruz, Marc X Ellul, Arcelia María Hernández-Cordero and Kayleigh-Anne Revagliatte, Ellul & Cruz

all employers in Gibraltar, starting with the largest (in number of employees), to provide all eligible employ - ees with access to a pension scheme in addition to the existing state pension. Should the employee elect to take up the pension scheme, the PSPA makes it compulsory for both the employer and employee to contribute a minimum amount each week or month (depending on the intervals at which the employee is paid) to the employee’s pension fund. As employers must contribute to the pension scheme on behalf of the employee, this fosters shared respon - sibility for retirement savings between employer and employee. The employee is required to contribute a portion of their salary to their pension scheme, which may be matched or supplemented by employer con - tributions. The requirements of the PSPA will come into effect at different times, depending on an employer’s size. This is calculated by the number of employees. The different employer bands and the number of employ - ees (according to which, membership of each band is measured) – as well as when the requirements of the PSPA start to apply to each of the different-sized employers – are: • enterprise (251 employees or more) – 1 August 2021; • large (101–250 employees (inclusive)) – 1 July 2022; • medium (51–100 employees (inclusive)) – 1 July 2025; • small (15–50 employees (inclusive)) – 1 July 2026; and • micro (14 employees or fewer) – 1 July 2027. The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission is appointed as Pensions Commissioner under the PSPA to ensure that the requirements are complied with by employers and by the administrators of pen - sion schemes. Social Insurance Contributions by employers and employees are as fol - lows subject to the minimum and maximum levels set out below:

• Employers – 18% of gross earnings with a mini - mum contribution of GBP1,662.57 and a maximum of GBP2,923.83 per annum. • Employees – 10% of gross earnings with a mini - mum contribution of GBP745.29 and a maximum of GBP2,121.21 per annum 2. Restrictive Covenants 2.1 Non-Competes There are no statutes pertaining to covenants not to compete in Gibraltar. The types of covenants commonly used in employ - ment contracts are: • non-solicitation covenants to prohibit a former employee from soliciting the customers or clients of the employer; • non-dealing covenants to prohibit a former employee from dealing with the customers or cli - ents of the employer; • non-competition covenants to prohibit a former employee from engaging in a competitive activity within a particular area or a time-scale (or both); and • non-solicitation or non-poaching of employees covenants to prohibit a former employee from soliciting their ex-colleagues. Covenants will only be enforceable if they are consid - ered reasonable, taking into account factors such as: • the nature of an employee’s work and what infor - mation they had access to; • whether the “clients” and “employees” are restrict - ed to those with whom the former employee had dealings; and • the size of an area restriction and its duration (this may be particularly relevant to a jurisdiction as small as Gibraltar). If restrictive covenants are disregarded or if confi - dential information is misused, an employer can seek damages against an employee/ex-employee or obtain an injunction restraining them from breaching said covenants or misusing said confidential information.

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