Practice Areas: Labor & Employment

International Employment Compliance

Our clients have operations and needs that span the globe, and we’re committed to providing the representation they need to protect and advance their interests. With this aim, McGuireWoods has developed extensive international employment law capabilities, with teams of employment lawyers based in London and Brussels acting as a hub for servicing the full range of clients’ requirements in the UK, Belgium, Europe and the rest of the world.

A World of Experience

Our London and Brussels employment teams provide day-to-day human resources support to clients, including advice regarding the recruitment and termination of key employees, compliance with the often complex requirements of international employment law, and various aspects of international corporate transactions. We also provide advice concerning redundancies and reorganizations, including related multi-jurisdictional requirements.

Further, our London team has particular expertise in the area of employment litigation. This includes matters in the English Employment Tribunal (including defending claims for unfair dismissal, and sensitive and high-value discrimination and whistleblower actions). Such representation also includes defending and prosecuting matters in the English High Court for disputes involving breach of contract, claims for damages, demands for injunctive and other relief for breach of “garden leave” requirements, breach of post-termination restrictive covenants, and misuse of confidential information.

In addition to advising on employment matters governed by English and Belgian law, we routinely deal with clients’ international employment law issues in and outside of Europe. In the London office alone, we have lawyers qualified in 17 jurisdictions who speak 27 different languages. We also have access to an extensive network of local counsel in practically every jurisdiction in the world. These experiences and contacts allow us coordinate the provision of employment advice in multiple jurisdictions, shouldering this burden for clients and ensuring that advice received from local counsel meets the high standards of quality clients have come to expect from McGuireWoods.

Representative Matters

• Successfully applied for and obtained dismissal of substantial English Employment Tribunal claims for consolidated unfair dismissal and unauthorized wage deductions brought against directors of an overseas investment fund by all of its UK employees.
• Successfully obtained a favorable settlement for a foreign owned London-based financial services business, resolving high-value claims for unfair dismissal and breach of contract threatened by a senior executive by asserting that certain correspondence with the executive’s solicitor constituted an attempt at blackmail, removing the cloak of privilege and amounting to an act of gross misconduct justifying summary dismissal.
• Represented a substantial US based international business in relation to the termination of a senior executive, who was a director of our client’s US board of directors, seconded to work for its UK subsidiary. We advised on the executive’s statutory rights under English law, the enforceability in English courts of restrictive covenants contained in the executive’s US employment contract, and on the interaction between an English law compromise agreement and a US severance / settlement agreement provided for under the executive’s US contract.
• Acted on behalf of the Resolution Committee appointed by the Icelandic government to manage the affairs of one of Iceland’s leading banks in the winding down of its UK branch. We advised and supported the collective redundancy process as well as the contractual arrangements needed for employees who remained in order to manage the wind-down process
• Advised a large Swedish public company in connection with its recruitment of two directors from a principal competitor to establish and run our client’s UK business. The two directors were subject to post-termination restrictive covenants, including non-competes. Working closely with the client, we devised a strategy to enable the directors to join our client without threat of legal action by their former employer.