International and Cross-border Employment Advice

Whether you are a UK organisation needing advice in overseas jurisdictions or an international client requiring UK employment and immigration advice, we are able to help.

Overview

We regularly work with clients headquartered overseas who require assistance in relation to setting up in the UK or in respect of projects relating to existing UK operations – assistance might include advice on the implementation of redundancy programmes, advice on hiring and termination, secondments or business immigration advice.

Many of our clients have operations across the world and so our team includes lawyers who are experienced in handling multi-jurisdictional employment law issues including cross-jurisdictional restructures, the implementation of global HR policies and the management of senior exits overseas.

Where advice is required outside of the UK, we deliver this through our global network of preferred law firms. We work regularly with the employment lawyers at these firms and view them as colleagues, meeting them throughout the year.

To ensure their standards match our own, we carefully monitor all of the work we refer, so we are confident that our clients will always be in good hands. We will often coordinate the advice, particularly where a number of jurisdictions are involved. This means we remain as your main point of contact throughout the project thus ensuring a seamless and hassle-free service.

For more information on our international employment law experience, please see our employment law experience page. You may also find our Guide to UK Employment Law of interest.

Areas of focus

Co-ordination and provision of employment due diligence reports across multiple jurisdictions.
Employment advice to international employers in setting up businesses in the UK, including providing advice on engaging employers of record.
Co-ordination of advice on restructuring and changing terms and conditions across multiple jurisdictions.
Setting up European Works Councils and other employee consultation fora.
Co-ordinating employment (TUPE) and immigration advice in relation to outsourcing overseas.
Advising on the implementation of global policies for international companies.
Advising on international secondments and remote working overseas.
Advising on international immigration projects, including coordinating employment and immigration advice across multiple jurisdictions for an international bank and advising on visa requirements for employees remote working overseas.

Experience

Due to the sensitive nature of our work in this area, the examples below have been anonymised.

Co-ordinating employment advice to a multinational media conglomerate across 19 jurisdictions for an IT outsourcing, including advising on the potential application of TUPE/ARD.

Advising on a major FM outsourcing project for a government department across European embassies and missions, involving co-ordinating legal advice on commercial issues, employment, pensions, tax and real estate across 12 European jurisdictions.

Advising a global US business with annual revenues of US $2.6 billion on a major HR/employment project relating to the implementation of psychometric assessment for recruiting and promotion purposes, involving co-ordinating advice from 23 jurisdictions across Europe, Asia and South America.

Advising a FTSE 100 company on international ERP outsourcing, covering 14 sites across the UK, France and the USA.

Co-ordinating Indian immigration and employment advice on setting up a IT data centre in India for a major UK retailer.

Co-ordinated and provided advice to an international architect firm on its set up of its UK operations and using an employer of record to engage their UK workforce and support their expansion in the UK.

Advising on setting up a European Works Council for a FTSE 100 Company.

Advising a FTSE 250 company in the manufacturing industry on a large-scale redundancy project involving a significant reduction in their workforce across multiple jurisdictions including Singapore, Spain and Italy.

Providing support in defending high value discrimination claims in the US for a FTSE 250 company, including co-ordinating advice from Russia in relation to the hiring of a new director.

Advising an Indian HQ technology company in relation to the setup of its UK operations and continued support of their rapid expansion in the UK.

Providing advice to a government body via immigration advisers in multiple different jurisdictions to identify appropriate immigration routes for employees temporarily seconded overseas

On-going advice to a global information company on business immigration matters (including strategic advice in respect of the recruitment and sponsorship of overseas nationals and immigration aspects of corporate transactions).

Providing tailored training to global businesses on recruiting, employing and obtaining immigration permission for employees working in the UK.

Meet the team