IEL Elite

Overview

AZB’s employment team is based across India, offering clients a one-stop shop for workforce management in the country. It regularly services domestic clients, as well as companies headquartered in Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and US, and provides expertise across a broad variety of sectors, including life sciences, financial services, and IT.

Senior partners Nohid Nooreyezdan (Mumbai) and Sunila Awasthi (New Delhi) are key names in the team.

Specialisms

The team supports clients with the A to Z of employment matters, from strategic hiring decisions, compliance, and mitigating litigation, through to senior employee exits.

As part of its skillset in advisory matters, the team regularly aids clients with drafting or reviewing handbooks or policies, outsourcing, and benefits plans – including cross-border arrangements. This extends to assistance with data privacy, trade secrets protection and non-solicitation agreements, collective bargaining, and other labour relations matters.

The team is also well placed to act on the employment ramifications of strategic corporate decisions, including M&A and post-merger integration, workforce reductions, secondments, and immigration, as well as related tax concerns.

Contentious work for the team regularly sees it advise on disputes relating to wrongful termination or discrimination claims, and compliance breaches.

In addition, the group offers significant expertise in internal investigations, including those related to discrimination, sexual harassment, or other allegations of employee misconduct.

On more nuanced matters, the team is able to draw on leading white collar crime, intellectual property, M&A, tax, and other experts within the firm to assist clients.

The department also provides training on key workforce issues, such as discrimination and sexual harassment awareness.