International Labor and Employment Law

In today's increasingly global, mobile and information-based economy, multinationals seek our guidance on aspects of human resources and employment law compliance that they align globally.

White & Case offers a dedicated team of lawyers who advise exclusively on international labor and employment law matters. We counsel multinational employers on the full range of multi-jurisdictional labor and employment law matters affecting their global HR initiatives and compliance.

Leveraging the worldwide scope of our more than 100 employment, labor, benefits and compensation lawyers in 24 offices, we advise multinationals on the legal implications of cross-border employment, benefits and HR initiatives. Taking a global (as opposed to multi-local) approach, we offer a one-stop solution for the legal advice clients need to implement regional and global HR initiatives and compliance.

Global Integration and Efficiencies
Labor and employment lawyers in every country tend to focus on their domestic local law. This local approach can frustrate multinational companies with cross-border HR operations. Our International Labor and Employment Law Practice is uniquely positioned as a unified team working daily as part of our worldwide network of local labor and employment lawyers. As a result, we provide seamless, globally-integrated advice on cross-jurisdictional matters.

Practice Highlights

Our multinational clients call on our International Labor and Employment Law Practice for advice and project management on the following categories of multi-jurisdictional HR compliance matters:

• Global codes of conduct, ethics codes, discrimination and diversity policies, and other global HR policies and Corporate Social Responsibility offerings
• Global collective redundancies, reductions-in-force and restructurings
• HR in international mergers and acquisitions (due diligence to post-merger integration)
• Global compensation and equity offerings, including regional and global bonus and compensation plans
• Overseas independent contractors as de facto employees
• Global whistleblower hotlines compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley and local law
• EU and other data privacy laws (data law compliance as to cross-border HR data transmissions and global Human Resource Information Systems)
• Global employee communications and language laws
• "Offshoring" and international outsourcing
• Global applicant background checks, screening and surveillance (video, computer)
• Duty of care and managing exposure to employee personal injuries abroad (terrorism, pandemics, dangerous assignments)
• Employment litigation involving the global workplace (extraterritorial reach of US and other countries' employment law, the US Alien Tort Claims Act, cross-jurisdictional employment law litigation)
• Global collective employee strategies (union/works council strategy alignment, global secondary [sympathy/solidarity] boycotts, response to international corporate campaigns)
• "Sweatshop" codes of conduct (strategy as to human rights allegations in third-world direct and outsourced operations)
• Expatriate arrangements (secondments, benefits, terminations, repatriation)
• Global employment counsel (one-stop solution for local employment compliance advice and oversight counsel for regional and global issues)

Award Highlight

• White & Cases's International Labor and Employment Law Practice is ranked first in the U.S. ("Leading") by PLC Which Lawyer, and the practice leader is ranked in Chambers.