Law firms will not be obliged to publish their gender pay gap figures by the end of April this year, with the U.K. government announcing that it has suspended the deadline for reporting due to the chaos caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.

In a joint statement published on the government's website, the Minister for Women & Equalities, Liz Truss, and chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, David Isaac, said: "We recognise that employers across the country are facing unprecedented uncertainty and pressure at this time. Because of this we feel it is only right to suspend enforcement of gender pay gap reporting this year."

Law firms to have already published their 2019 gender pay gap figures include Magic Circle firms Allen & Overy and Linklaters, as well as White & Case and Irwin Mitchell.

Several firms, including  Eversheds Sutherland and Pinsent Masons, say that they expect to continue with their current plan of publishing their data.

A spokesperson for CMS said in a statement: "We absolutely intend to publish as planned and whilst we appreciate the government wanting to relieve the pressure for some businesses, we are not impacted by the current challenges in a way that would affect gender pay reporting."

Tamara Box, managing partner for Europe and the Middle East at Reed Smith, responded to a tweet about the necessity of reporting on the gender pay gap by saying: "Nothing stopping us from reporting and holding ourselves to account internally!"

In its statement, the government said that over 3,000 employers have already shared their gender pay gap data for this year, which makes up 26% of the expected reporters.

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