IEL Elite

Overview

Peers commend the quality of Linklaters’ employment and incentives department. The group is spread across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the US.

London-based Alexandra Beidas is the global head of the team, and was singled out in IEL’s 2022 Women Leaders survey.

The department has considerably bolstered its offering in the past year. In August 2022, Narendra Adiyasa joined Linklaters’ formal association firm Widyawan & Partners in Indonesia as head of employment. This followed the lateral hire of New York-based executive compensation specialist Andrew L Gaines from Paul, Weiss in June 2022.

In addition, the firm promoted Belén Lavandera in Madrid to counsel in November 2022, further strengthening the depth of the group’s bench.

Specialisms

The impressive global team advises on the full range of matters impacting workforce management, from updating contracts and negotiating high-level executive service agreements through to data privacy and D&I.

A key area of activity is in whistleblowing. This was evidenced in advice to Nomura on a speaking-up programme. The team assisted the company with implementing cross-border changes to the programme following the implementation of the EU Whistleblowing Directive, and provides ongoing training regarding the Financial Conduct Authority’s whistleblowing regime. Team members also carry out investigations for major clients into highly sensitive whistleblowing claims.

The department regularly acts on major cross-border mandates, including M&A and IPOs.

This prowess was leveraged in the team’s assistance to Unilever on employment matters relating to the sale of its global tea business Ekaterra to CVC Capital partners for €4.5bn, involving 24 brands, 11 factories and three tea estates in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. The UK team co-ordinated experts across 35 jurisdictions – including Linklaters specialists in China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and from its alliance firm Allens in Australia – to advise on employee transfers (including interim solutions such as secondments for certain jurisdictions), communication with trade unions and works councils, and employment due diligence.

Incentives specialists in the team are adept at taking on a wide range of mandates, including those in the financial services sector. The department’s strength in this field was also leveraged in the Ekaterra sale. London-based partner Cara Hegarty led the advice, which included ensuring that the separation did not impact employee share plan participation, and negotiating with potential bidders on liability sharing for legacy Unilever share plan awards.

On the pensions side, the department is well-versed in the gamut of issues facing major domestic or multinational employers. Expertise spans pension fund consolidation, liability management (including buy-in/buy-out and longevity swap structures), and corporate reorganisations, transactions, and insolvencies.

Team members are also well placed to act on investigations by the authorities, trade union recognition, claw-backs, payroll arrangements, and high-stakes disputes – including with relation to discrimination allegations, whistleblowing claims, and those resulting from corporate transactions.

In 2020, Linklaters launched its Diversity Faculty – a client offering that combines legal advice with strategic business guidance on D&I issues. The service aims to help clients manage the often-delicate balance between legal, regulatory, and governance issues and long-term business reputation.

Clients