International Employment Law
With the ever-increasing internationalization of business, the need for companies to effectively manage their international workforce continues to grow. Employers with multinational businesses face a myriad of foreign employment laws and local cultural considerations that impact how they can best achieve their commercial objectives.
Given the premium placed on good corporate citizenship and the legal, commercial, and financial risks arising from international compliance issues, companies need to be able to monitor and maintain control over their offshore operations and have comfort and confidence that their employment systems and approach operate lawfully and effectively around the world.
HOW WE HELP
Seyfarth's International Employment Law practice is the world’s largest specialist practice of its kind, with experience covering more than 190 countries, acting for some of the world’s largest multinational companies on a global, regional, and local basis. We assist multinational employers with a full range of employment-related matters at the global, regional, and local levels—issues ranging from day-to-day international matters on a single-country basis, to large and complex multijurisdictional employment law projects and transactions. Our service model involves only foreign-trained lawyers with true specialist international employment expertise, ensuring the highest quality of service.
OUR SERVICES
International Transactional Assistance. Mergers and acquisitions, spinoffs and joint ventures, including HR due diligence, international employment structures, advice regarding union and/or works council consultation, business transfer laws and post-transaction workforce integration issues.
Compliance Issues. Labor and employment law requirements such as working hours/overtime, leave requirements, data protection, and anti-discrimination and harassment issues; as well as corporate compliance measures such as codes of conduct, whistleblowing, and anti-bribery programs.
Strategic and Commercial HR Initiatives. Remote working arrangements, performance management programs, international assignment/transfer structures, and retention and remuneration arrangements including compensation, commission and bonus arrangements, non-compete/nonsolicitation arrangements, and IP protection arrangements.
Contracts, Policies and Procedures. Employee handbooks, offer letters and employment contracts, and work rules/company regulations.
Reductions-in-Force. Individual and large scale multicountry initiatives.
Outsourcing Arrangements. Small and large scale non-employment structures on a single and multijurisdictional basis.
Non-Employee Issues. Vendor, temporary, and contractor arrangements.
Employment Counseling Issues. Day-to-day and one-off issues related to non-US and cross-border workforce issues.
OUR SCOPE
Our employment law teams located in our US, UK, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Australia offices enable us to provide real time assistance on the ground. Team members in these offices provide clients with premier expertise at the local levels, as well as regional expertise across the Asia Pacific; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Latin America.
Notably, at the regional and global levels, we specialize in multijurisdictional employment law projects and transactions, including:
Cross-Border Employment Projects. In the last year we completed more than 200 multijurisdictional strategic and compliance projects covering more than 120 countries.
International Transactions. We acted as specialist international employment counsel on more than 20 international transactions in the last year, including in some of the highest-profile global M&A transactions. A testimony to the profile of the practice is that we were appointed by the client to provide specialist international employment advice in each of these transactions where other firms were the client's appointed deal counsel.
We act for large multinational clients across a variety of industries (the team has particularly deep experience serving technology industry clients). In addition to serving large multinational companies, the team acts for acquisitive international organizations—often with a change agenda. In either instance, the client is one who has multijurisdictional, strategically important and commercially sensitive employment needs.
THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE
Our team has changed the way that many of the world’s largest companies manage their global employment issues by providing an experienced central point of contact for all international employment matters. We operate a team-based approach with continuity among the lawyers working on clients’ matters to ensure that institutional knowledge about our clients and their industries is captured and properly leveraged over time. Unlike other firms, our international employment law practice is not composed of domestic lawyers who try to do international work as a sideline to their domestic practice.
Our team is very experienced in developing custom solutions to address the types of legal issues faced by companies doing business internationally. Having worked across more than 190 countries, our team is known for its innovative solutions and high-quality commercial results for our clients.
We have a series of long-standing and very well-tested and reliable relationships with top employment lawyers across the globe. These relationships allow us to deliver a work product that takes account of our clients’ commercial objectives in a short timeframe and with budget certainty. We can guarantee that the right people are always working on our clients’ matters, irrespective of jurisdiction. Few other firms, if any, can deliver on this promise. We have done so for many years. Further, we can work with our clients’ preferred firms in any jurisdiction(s) they desire because we do not have competition or conflict issues with any local firms, given our specific practice model and structure.
Where global or regional international employment law matters include the United States, our International Employment Law practice works in seamless coordination with the firm’s market-leading US Labor & Employment team.
- Devised and assisted in implementing a global HR-related data privacy compliance strategy for one of the world’s largest technology companies to facilitate its lawful collection, use, movement and retention of its 90,000 workers’ personal information around the world in more than 100 countries. This was one of the largest and most complex projects of its type ever completed.
- Designed the strategy, drafted the documents and assisted with the implementation of the global employment structure and country-specific arrangements covering operations in more than 75 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America for a pharmaceutical research business.
- Advised about the local language and documentation requirements for HR-related documents for employees in 47 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America for one of the world’s largest consumer brands.
- Advised about the health and safety legal obligations across Europe, including providing face-to-face pan-European training for European plant managers, for one of the world’s largest manufacturers.
- Advised about the options, strategy and structure for employees going on international assignments on a global basis for one of the world’s largest construction companies.
- Assisted with all of the international employment aspects of a $5.7 billion acquisition of a biotech/pharmaceutical company with operations in over 30 countries. We conducted due diligence and advised the client regarding employment integration matters, including works council and employee representative consultations. We prepared and managed the roll-out process for non-competition agreements for high-level executives in 16 countries.
- Assisted with a $3.3 billion post-acquisition employee integration of employees into the technology company acquirer’s existing entities across Asia, including developing strategies for integration, redundancies and harmonization of conditions of employment.
- Assisted with the international employment aspects of the sale of a large aerospace unit, including the mandatory works council and employee representative consultations that preceded the sale and the transition of employees to the buyer. We also managed the employee transition process, including the preparation of employment and termination agreements, consultation documents and employee transfer notifications.
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Recognition
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Recognition
12/12/2024
Seyfarth Ranked as Australia’s Only Band 1 Firm in Employment & Safety in Both New South Wales and Victoria by Chambers Asia Pacific for 2025
-
Recognition
11/20/2024
Seyfarth Spotlighted Again in Legal500 Hong Kong Rankings for Labour & Employment
-
Recognition
11/14/2024
Seyfarth Named International Employment Law Team of the Year by IEL, Additionally Ranked in IEL Global Elite 2025
-
Recognition
09/23/2024
Seyfarth Shortlisted for Six 2024 International Employment Lawyer Awards
With the ever-increasing internationalization of business, the need for companies to effectively manage their international workforce continues to grow. Employers with multinational businesses face a myriad of foreign employment laws and local cultural considerations that impact how they can best achieve their commercial objectives.
Given the premium placed on good corporate citizenship and the legal, commercial, and financial risks arising from international compliance issues, companies need to be able to monitor and maintain control over their offshore operations and have comfort and confidence that their employment systems and approach operate lawfully and effectively around the world.
HOW WE HELP
Seyfarth's International Employment Law practice is the world’s largest specialist practice of its kind, with experience covering more than 190 countries, acting for some of the world’s largest multinational companies on a global, regional, and local basis. We assist multinational employers with a full range of employment-related matters at the global, regional, and local levels—issues ranging from day-to-day international matters on a single-country basis, to large and complex multijurisdictional employment law projects and transactions. Our service model involves only foreign-trained lawyers with true specialist international employment expertise, ensuring the highest quality of service.
OUR SERVICES
International Transactional Assistance. Mergers and acquisitions, spinoffs and joint ventures, including HR due diligence, international employment structures, advice regarding union and/or works council consultation, business transfer laws and post-transaction workforce integration issues.
Compliance Issues. Labor and employment law requirements such as working hours/overtime, leave requirements, data protection, and anti-discrimination and harassment issues; as well as corporate compliance measures such as codes of conduct, whistleblowing, and anti-bribery programs.
Strategic and Commercial HR Initiatives. Remote working arrangements, performance management programs, international assignment/transfer structures, and retention and remuneration arrangements including compensation, commission and bonus arrangements, non-compete/nonsolicitation arrangements, and IP protection arrangements.
Contracts, Policies and Procedures. Employee handbooks, offer letters and employment contracts, and work rules/company regulations.
Reductions-in-Force. Individual and large scale multicountry initiatives.
Outsourcing Arrangements. Small and large scale non-employment structures on a single and multijurisdictional basis.
Non-Employee Issues. Vendor, temporary, and contractor arrangements.
Employment Counseling Issues. Day-to-day and one-off issues related to non-US and cross-border workforce issues.
OUR SCOPE
Our employment law teams located in our US, UK, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Australia offices enable us to provide real time assistance on the ground. Team members in these offices provide clients with premier expertise at the local levels, as well as regional expertise across the Asia Pacific; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Latin America.
Notably, at the regional and global levels, we specialize in multijurisdictional employment law projects and transactions, including:
Cross-Border Employment Projects. In the last year we completed more than 200 multijurisdictional strategic and compliance projects covering more than 120 countries.
International Transactions. We acted as specialist international employment counsel on more than 20 international transactions in the last year, including in some of the highest-profile global M&A transactions. A testimony to the profile of the practice is that we were appointed by the client to provide specialist international employment advice in each of these transactions where other firms were the client's appointed deal counsel.
We act for large multinational clients across a variety of industries (the team has particularly deep experience serving technology industry clients). In addition to serving large multinational companies, the team acts for acquisitive international organizations—often with a change agenda. In either instance, the client is one who has multijurisdictional, strategically important and commercially sensitive employment needs.
THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE
Our team has changed the way that many of the world’s largest companies manage their global employment issues by providing an experienced central point of contact for all international employment matters. We operate a team-based approach with continuity among the lawyers working on clients’ matters to ensure that institutional knowledge about our clients and their industries is captured and properly leveraged over time. Unlike other firms, our international employment law practice is not composed of domestic lawyers who try to do international work as a sideline to their domestic practice.
Our team is very experienced in developing custom solutions to address the types of legal issues faced by companies doing business internationally. Having worked across more than 190 countries, our team is known for its innovative solutions and high-quality commercial results for our clients.
We have a series of long-standing and very well-tested and reliable relationships with top employment lawyers across the globe. These relationships allow us to deliver a work product that takes account of our clients’ commercial objectives in a short timeframe and with budget certainty. We can guarantee that the right people are always working on our clients’ matters, irrespective of jurisdiction. Few other firms, if any, can deliver on this promise. We have done so for many years. Further, we can work with our clients’ preferred firms in any jurisdiction(s) they desire because we do not have competition or conflict issues with any local firms, given our specific practice model and structure.
Where global or regional international employment law matters include the United States, our International Employment Law practice works in seamless coordination with the firm’s market-leading US Labor & Employment team.
- Devised and assisted in implementing a global HR-related data privacy compliance strategy for one of the world’s largest technology companies to facilitate its lawful collection, use, movement and retention of its 90,000 workers’ personal information around the world in more than 100 countries. This was one of the largest and most complex projects of its type ever completed.
- Designed the strategy, drafted the documents and assisted with the implementation of the global employment structure and country-specific arrangements covering operations in more than 75 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America for a pharmaceutical research business.
- Advised about the local language and documentation requirements for HR-related documents for employees in 47 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America for one of the world’s largest consumer brands.
- Advised about the health and safety legal obligations across Europe, including providing face-to-face pan-European training for European plant managers, for one of the world’s largest manufacturers.
- Advised about the options, strategy and structure for employees going on international assignments on a global basis for one of the world’s largest construction companies.
- Assisted with all of the international employment aspects of a $5.7 billion acquisition of a biotech/pharmaceutical company with operations in over 30 countries. We conducted due diligence and advised the client regarding employment integration matters, including works council and employee representative consultations. We prepared and managed the roll-out process for non-competition agreements for high-level executives in 16 countries.
- Assisted with a $3.3 billion post-acquisition employee integration of employees into the technology company acquirer’s existing entities across Asia, including developing strategies for integration, redundancies and harmonization of conditions of employment.
- Assisted with the international employment aspects of the sale of a large aerospace unit, including the mandatory works council and employee representative consultations that preceded the sale and the transition of employees to the buyer. We also managed the employee transition process, including the preparation of employment and termination agreements, consultation documents and employee transfer notifications.
Related News & Insights
-
Legal Update
12/16/2024
The Emerging Law on Women’s Advancement Programs and Transgender Rights: A Cross-Border Perspective
-
Legal Update
12/04/2024
To Compete or Not to Compete – Challenges in the Imposition and Enforcement of Non-compete Provisions in Employment Contracts in Singapore
-
Blog Post
11/18/2024
Reflections on the Positive Duty to Prevent Sexual Harassment two years on
-
Legal Update
11/14/2024
Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Cultural Shift or Business as Usual?
Recognition
-
Recognition
12/12/2024
Seyfarth Ranked as Australia’s Only Band 1 Firm in Employment & Safety in Both New South Wales and Victoria by Chambers Asia Pacific for 2025
-
Recognition
11/20/2024
Seyfarth Spotlighted Again in Legal500 Hong Kong Rankings for Labour & Employment
-
Recognition
11/14/2024
Seyfarth Named International Employment Law Team of the Year by IEL, Additionally Ranked in IEL Global Elite 2025
-
Recognition
09/23/2024
Seyfarth Shortlisted for Six 2024 International Employment Lawyer Awards