Employment, Pensions and HR

An overview of the services provided by our employment solicitors can be found below:

• Contracts, policies and procedures
• Corporate immigration
• Discrimination and equal pay
• Employee benefits
• Employee defection and recruitment
• Employee equity plans and incentives
• Employment disputes
• Executive recruitment and termination
• Labour relations
• Pensions
• Pensions litigation
• Restructuring and redundancy
• TUPE and outsourcing.

After years of serving as one of the best employment law solicitors in the UK, the team at Womble Bond Dickinson have had the privilege of working alongside a wide range of high-profile clients and exciting start-ups. See some examples of the past and ongoing projects that our employment law lawyers have worked on below:

• We are acting for IBM in defending a multi-claimant employment tribunal claim (involving approximately 300 claimants) for constructive and unfair dismissal and age discrimination, arising out of changes made to their pensions scheme
• We successfully defended five ex-employees of a business in an application to the High Court for a springboard injunction and an injunction to enforce restrictive covenants (the reported case of CEF Holdings Ltd and another v Mundey and others)
• We act for IBM in relation to day-to-day advice on its occupational pension plans as well as employer-led projects. These include ceasing defined benefit accrual, implementing non-pensionability agreements, and changing early retirement policy. We acted on the subsequent litigation in the High Court  / Court of Appeal and Employment Tribunal on the leading case regarding the employer's duty of good faith in relation to pension plans (IBM United Kingdom Holdings Limited and another v Dalgleish and others)
• We advise Procter & Gamble in relation to its UK pension arrangements including, most recently, on the pension implications of the sale of its beauty brands to Coty Inc. in a c.$12.5 billion deal, which involved the transfer of hundreds of staff in the company's largest UK pension plan
• Successfully defended employers in a class action lawsuit by defeating a 10(j) preliminary injunction proceeding brought by the NLRB; defeated a lawsuit brought by the EEOC to enforce a corporate-wide administrative subpoena; and defeated the OFCCP in a class action lawsuit
• Obtained successful administrative law judge decisions for a client in high-stakes OSHA citations and successfully resolved numerous OSHA matters involving workplace fatalities and serious injuries
• Represented a software company in a tortious interference trade secret and business conspiracy action by preventing its former Chief Technology Officer and other former employees from pirating its core operating software and poaching its clients
• Defended businesses in FLSA collective actions and wage and hour matters in state and federal courts in multiple sectors, including health care, financial services, retail and manufacturing
• Defended employers from a variety of industries in claims alleging various types of discrimination and retaliation before federal and state agencies as well as lawsuits brought in federal and state courts
• Obtained a successful settlement with the IRS permitting a plan sponsor to retroactively amend its 401(k) plan to conform to plan operation, saving the plan sponsor several hundred thousand dollars
• Provided tax advice on executive compensation matters in significant transactions including: spinoff of an enterprise unit of a multinational hospitality company; merger of a manufacturer of high performance radio systems and a notable semiconductor manufacturer; merger of a publically traded bank holding company with a US-based financial institution; and acquisition of an affiliate marketing agency for global brands and retailers by a subsidiary of a global digital retailer
• Enabled publicly-traded retail company to eliminate employer stock from its 401(k) plan
• Filed employment-based immigrant and non-immigrant petitions including, but not limited to, preparation of treaty investor/trader visa applications, H-1B temporary worker petitions and L-1 intra-company transfer petitions, as well as applications for permanent employment certification for advanced degree professionals and skilled workers and priority worker petitions for individuals of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational executives and managers.