Recruiters should resist attempts by clients to indemnify them against claims for which recruiters have no responsibility, recruiters have heard.

Lorraine Laryea, a solicitor in the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s (REC) legal department, told delegates at the REC’s AWR National Summit in London yesterday that some clients were pushing recruiters to indemnify them for all claims made at Employment Tribunals by agency workers under AWR.

However, she said that such attempts should be resisted. “It’s a bargaining issue,” she said. “There is a significant amount of risk if you are prepared to take responsibility for failings that are not the agency’s responsibility.”

Thomas Player, a partner at Eversheds, added that recruiters could go out of business if such claims were upheld.

However, he said that it wasn’t necessarily in the best interest of clients to adopt such an approach. “They would have to put in a legal team and defend the claim, and there were reputational issues for clients,” he said.