IEL Elite

Overview

Simmons & Simmons’ large employment team is spread across offices in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Peers repeatedly highlight the group – led by new practice head Laurence Renard in Paris – as a major player on the international stage, particularly in Asia and the UK.

Simmons & Simmons has a strong international practice.

The firm’s impressive client list includes a host of Fortune 500 companies, and notable names from the financial services, asset management, and TMT sectors in particular.

The team’s first-rate Asia offering is led by Fiona Loughrey in Hong Kong, who was highlighted in IEL’s Women Leaders survey in 2022. New partner Clarence Ding in 2022 became the head of the Singapore team. Also of note, Andrea Finn is the new leader in the UK.

Other partner promotions in 2022 are Tair Hussain in London, Dimitri Van Uytvanck in Brussels, and Julia Gori in Paris. Most recently, the firm strengthened its Spanish and Dutch teams with the arrival of Juan Calvente as counsel from Clifford Chance and Rezah Stegeman from Loyens & Loeff.

Specialisms

The team regularly covers a wide variety of employment matters, from flexible working to assistance with extraordinary matters such as mass layoffs or big-ticket litigation.

In particular, the group is well placed to assist with delicate internal investigations – from regulatory or expense policy breaches to allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment – and can pool expertise from other departments to offer comprehensive support to clients.

An area of growth for the group is D&I mandates. Aside from advisory work relating to D&I audits, pay equity issues and concerns relating to data privacy, the firm offers a toolkit to support clients’ D&I programmes. London-based partner Mandy Perry leads the firm’s pro bono work in this space.

Other standout areas for the group include M&A and other strategic corporate operations, such as entity wind-downs and workforce relocations, as well as trade union negotiations, and incentives and pensions.

Other key names

• Eduardo Peñacoba (Madrid)
• Sascha Morgenroth (Frankfurt)
• Joris Oster (Amsterdam)
• Davide Sportelli (Milan)
• Julian Taylor (London)

Experts based in...

Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.