Employment

We help employers, partnerships and LLPs – particularly in the private capital industry – navigate employment issues with clarity and confidence. Whether supporting day-to-day HR needs or managing sensitive disputes, we act as a trusted advisor – protecting reputations, preserving key relationships and reducing risk.

From managing high-stake exits, disputes and investigations to advising on restructuring, governance and incentives, we work as an extension of our clients’ teams. Our advice is commercial, pragmatic and always aligned with the client’s wider priorities. Where litigation is unavoidable, we act with discretion and resolve, combining strategic thinking with a commercial approach to resolution.

Our team draws on deep expertise across different disciplines, including employment, litigation, financial services regulation, tax, pensions, incentives and immigration. This breadth allows us to advise sensitively on complex matters involving multiple stakeholders, internal dynamics and cross-border considerations.

Our advice and support for clients includes:

• senior exits and contentious departures;
• LLP and partnership member disputes;
• employment tribunal proceedings including discrimination and whistleblowing claims;
• misconduct and other internal investigations;
• bonus and incentive disputes;
• restrictive covenants, team moves and injunctions;
• TUPE, redundancies and restructuring;
• breach of duty claims; and
• day-to-day employment advisory, including contracts, policies and performance management.

Work highlights include:

• representing a leading private equity business on all of its employment needs, including a series of sensitive senior exits;
• establishing complex leaver arrangements for an asset manager client, dovetailing prohibitions on future competitive activity with the treatment and vesting of carried interest;
• advising an employer on a disciplinary investigation into a series of sexual harassment complaints brought against a senior executive;
• advising a financial services client on large scale redundancies following a merger, including complicated negotiations involving the exit of all UK employees through a combination of redundancies and business sales;
• successfully advising a major financial institution in litigation from a competitor seeking to use TUPE to secure the early release of a senior executive;
• advising a number of individuals and teams in relation to team moves in the banking and financial services sectors;
• defending claims for discrimination and whistleblowing against the backdrop of boardroom disputes resulting in the departure of senior directors;
• advising on the dismissal of an employee for gross misconduct for theft of intellectual property; and
• advising a long-standing financial services client regarding allegations of sexual discrimination and whistleblowing made against the firm by one of its most senior partners.