Labor, Employment & Employee Benefits
People are essential to your business. When it comes to employing them, however, few things are ever simple. Their legal rights, personal needs and cultural expectations present both opportunities and risks.
The laws and regulations governing relationships between employers and employees are complex, confusing and sometimes contradictory. If you don't know your rights - or respect theirs - your productivity, profitability and reputation can all suffer.
At Enlighten Corp, we understand that business success requires legally sound, strategically savvy labor and employment policies and practices. Our Employment Practice Group focuses to help employers comply with the law, prevent unwanted issues from arising and continuously adapt to the realities of an intensely competitive global economy.
How We Can Help
- Workplace issues and policies : We help implement, monitor and enforce policies dealing with sexual harassment, discrimination, drug and alcohol testing, employee privacy and family and medical leave.
- Labor relations : We help with wage and hour issues, unionizing activities, collective bargaining, interpretation of work rules, grievances and industrial disputes.
- Business immigration and executive transfer : We help facilitate expatriate assignments, from compliance with immigration and employment laws to benefits and tax planning.
- Terminations and layoffs : We provide counsel on separation agreements, as well as the legal and regulatory notice requirements associated with reductions in force and plant closings.
- Employment-related litigation : We defend or prosecute claims of wrongful discharge, discrimination, harassment, whistleblower actions and protection of intellectual property.
- Employee benefits and executive compensation : We design, implement and administer all types of employee benefits and executive compensation programs.
- Pensions law : We provide practical counseling to sponsoring employers, trustees and plan administrators involved in running occupational pension plans on all aspects of legislative, regulatory and fiscal requirements.
Business Migration & Executive Transfers
In today's economy, the global movement of employees is essential. Getting the right people to the right places at the right time, with proper support, is critical to the success of far-flung businesses.
But there often is a gap between business necessity and practical reality when it comes to moving your people to new countries. You have to anticipate and deal effectively with a host of interconnected legal issues and individual concerns. Immigration and visa requirements. Tax implications. Jurisdictional concerns. We offer comprehensive legal advice on Business Migration and Executive Transfer to Thailand and other countries in Asia Pacific.
At Enlighten Corp, we can help you plan and implement employee transfers and provide on-site coverage to your company and employees in most major business communities around the globe. Our network of immigration law attorneys assist both pre- and post-transfer to ensure that employment contracts are complete and enforceable, that employee benefits meet needs and relevant legal requirements, and that tax planning is sound and defensible.
How We Can Help
- Short-term work assignments and business visitors
- Transfer of staff to existing operations, including employees with specialist and technical skills, executives and managers and new employees hired from overseas
- Short-term specialist visas for training assignments, work experience and working holidays, entertainment, sporting and media events
- Employment, employee benefits and taxation advice, in relation to transfer of staff and auditing to ensure compliance with employers' obligations to prevent unauthorized employment
- Establishment of new business operations abroad, including the transfer of senior personnel to establish operations and related corporate and securities and taxation advice
- Large-scale transfers, including transfers relating to "major change" projects
- Business migration and inward investment
- Coordination among members of our global team to obtain foreign visas from consular offices or to execute transfers to several different jurisdictions
- Transfer-related immigration matters, including permanent residence, citizenship and relocation of spouses and other dependents
- Ancillary transfer issues, working with a range of professionals in relation to shipping of personal belongings and customs and excise duties
- File management, maintaining employee records for visa renewals, provision of status reports and planning and coordination of global immigration requirements
- Client care, including electronic bulletins on major changes in local immigration law and practice, a quarterly newsletter outlining global developments and regular seminars and workshops for clients on a broad range of issues
Employment Litigation
Our practitioners have extensive experience in litigation matters involving class actions, employment discrimination laws, sexual harassment, employee loyalty, wrongful discharge, individual employment contracts, and work-related tort claims.
We have also defended employers in arbitrations and grievance hearings, and in other alternative dispute resolution proceedings. Other experience includes the defense of a myriad of common law claims, including breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, wrongful and retaliatory discharge, "whistle-blower" actions, defamation, invasion of privacy, and negligent retention of employees.
Our employment law litigators have prosecuted a wide variety of cases on behalf of employers, including claims of unfair competition, pirating of trade secrets, protection of intellectual property, employee disloyalty, and breach of restrictive covenants.
Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits
Our team in the Management Compensation and Employee Benefits practice group work with employers in Thailand to design, implement, and administer all types of employee benefits and executive compensation programs.
We provide a wide range of compensation and benefit services, including:
- The analysis of qualification, deduction and other income and withholding tax issues;
- Advice on fiduciary matters, including responsibilities and liabilities, retirement plan investments, and how to avoid prohibited transactions;
- The design and implementation of nonqualified deferred compensation and equity compensation plans;
- Negotiation, design and preparation of executive employment, consulting, handcuff and parachute agreements;
- The identification of potential employee benefits issues arising in corporate mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations and other business transactions;
- Counseling and planning regarding the tax, compensation, benefits, employment and other issues attendant to the transfer of executives and other personnel across borders.
Pension Funds
Our pension law attorneys provide practical counseling to sponsoring employers, trustees, and plan administrators involved in running occupational pension plans on all aspects of legislative, regulatory, and fiscal requirements. The scope of this advice encompasses acquisitions, plan mergers and terminations, plan investments, fiduciary matters, discrimination issues, disputes and plan funding. Our attorneys are highly experienced in drafting and amending plan documentation, particularly with respect to tax reform and other changes required by legislative changes or recently issued regulations. We also represent pension plans, plan sponsors, and trustees in litigation-related matters and before local governmental authorities and agencies.
Similarly, our pension attorneys have become trusted advisers to employers who operate in the international arena. We have substantial experience in dealing with all international pension issues, including advising on the suitability and tax efficiency of offshore arrangements and making recommendations on the provision of pension benefits for internationally mobile employees.
We have advised clients regarding the tax, labor law, and other regulatory issues involved in the establishment of global pension programs in dozens of jurisdictions worldwide. We have also assisted clients in solving operational problems that arise with respect to ongoing global pension programs and can offer practical solutions based upon our experience with other clients. Finally, our attorneys assist both buyers and sellers with respect to the pension issues raised in multinational transactions and, given our extensive network of offices, we can coordinate the pensions advice from different jurisdictions to provide a seamless work product for our clients.
