Employment

Employment matters can be complex, sensitive, varied and invariably important. To deal with them we have an overriding commitment to excellence and the highest levels of service, coupled with discretion and an innovative and collaborative approach.  As a result, and working always hand in hand with you, we get to the heart of the issue to achieve the most sensible and commercial solutions for each situation.

We pride ourselves on giving straightforward, sympathetic advice and using our initiative to support you. The team is recognised by the legal directories as providing “advice with a deep understanding of the client’s perspective” and being “a proactive and pragmatic team with excellent insight and experience of industry issues”.

Combining all relevant areas of expertise, we provide joined up solutions by working with our highly regarded immigration and expatriate practices and our incentives, tax, pensions and governance / regulatory colleagues to offer clients a comprehensive service.

We are committed to being at the forefront of developments in the world of employment law and to sharing this knowledge with our clients – such as through our annual State of HR survey, in conjunction with King’s College London and its HRM Learning Board; our learning events and regular industry updates. 

We are unusual in the fact that we advise both employers and employees. We find that understanding both sides of an argument, means we have a balanced approach and can help our clients get their employment solutions right in the first place, and resolve things more quickly if they do go wrong.

Experience

Highlights of our recent work include:

Redundancies and related advice

We act for a global firm of building design and consulting engineers and recently supported them with their collective redundancy programme which involved 5,000 employees across a number of jurisdictions.  As part of our support we managed our client’s response to a number of complex Tribunal claims including disability, age and sexual orientation complaints which were successfully defended.

Global incentive scheme

We advised a London based investment bank on the implementation of a retention scheme to incentivise and retain key staff throughout the world, with the assistance of local counsel in four jurisdictions in the Far East as well as New York, Istanbul, Sao Paulo and Moscow.  This project involved creative thinking from both tax and employment specialists to create a solution which would incentivise key people across the globe to remain with the Bank.

Ongoing advice and a sounding board

We have advised independent investment management company, Williams de Broë, for over 10 years.  Throughout this time we have provided a broad range of support including advice on possible injunction applications following an acquisition, implementation of incentive schemes for key managers and staff across the business as well as advice on recruitment and employment contracts. The HR team at Williams de Broë regard us as an extension of their team and regularly use us as a sounding board for ideas and advice.

Board and executive team restructuring

Working with a leading European computer and games retailer, we advised this long standing client of our firm on the employment and governance / regulatory aspects of a series of high profile changes to their executive team.  This included the departure of their CEO and COO, the appointment of an interim CEO, followed by a permanent appointment.  The whole process had to be handled very sensitively, with both the press and the Stock Exchange, in order to manage the reputation of the group.  We have subsequently advised on the restructuring of the new executive team below board level.

High profile insolvency proceedings

We advised on both MFI administrations and on the administration of French retail chain Morgan.  In relation to MFI, the first administration involved certain of the stores being bought out and hopefully “saved”.  This involved complex structuring of the separation of the workforce and management team, as well as ongoing service provision from the old company to support the new company and vice versa through transitional service agreements.  We advised on the complex TUPE related issues arising from this.  We were also required to advise on the commercial risks involved and also where liability for claims would be likely to rest.  This demonstrated our ability to provide clear and practical advice on complex legal and business matters, in order to meet the client’s needs creatively with the least possible risks.