Employment & Benefits

Made up of widely experienced and highly regarded partners drawn from our corporate and dispute resolution departments, this specialised practice provides seamless “A to Z” support in relation to a broad range of employment and executive compensation issues for clients ranging from large international corporations to senior executives.

As you will see below, our expert Employment & Benefits team routinely covers a very large amount of ground. But whether we’re advising large corporations on cross border employment policies, designing new compensation plans, or acting to resolve potentially expensive disputes, we’re here to help organisations and individuals work better together and more productively.

Our lawyers are among the very best in their specialist field. Kala Anandarajah and Abdul Jabbar have both been cited as leading employment lawyers in AsiaLaw Leading Lawyers. On the contentious front, our specialist partners, including Andre Yeap SC, Francis Xavier SC and Murali Pillai SC, have a proven track record of successfully handling the entire range of employment disputes in both court and arbitration settings.

WITHIN THIS PRACTICE

Practice areas

The following provides a very brief summary of the main areas covered by this practice, and the ways in which we are most frequently able to help our clients. For more detailed information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Employment appointment and termination

Advise private, public and multinational companies extensively on employment related matters, including appointment, rights and duties of employees and employers and termination
Draft employment agreements for employees at multiple levels
Counsel, advise clients on cross border employment concerns
Drafting cross border employment agreements
Counsel, advise and draft relevant documentation in relation to secondment of employees at various levels, within Singapore and across jurisdictions, including advising on tax and other incidental implications
Counsel and advise on issues relating to termination of employees, including drafting appropriate exit and no claim letters
Advise extensively on unfair dismissal allegations across the region and managing such claims

Employment policies

Advise, design and draft various forms of employee handbooks and manuals dealing with employee entitlements, rights and obligations.
Advise, design and draft various policies on monitoring employee use of emails and other official modes of communication.
Advise, design and draft various forms of whistle-blowing policies, assist with implementation processes and conduct regular training for continuity.
Advise, design and drafting ethics, anti-corruption, anti-trust, health and various other types of policies.

Managing confidentiality, restraint of trade and non-competes

Advise on all aspects of restraint and non-compete provisions for various levels of employees from varying industries, including financial institutions and multinational corporations.
Advise, design and draft policies intended to protect the confidentiality of trade secrets and other proprietary information.
Advise, design and draft data protection policies.
Advise non-compete provisions, the validity of such provisions and resolving the dispute before court proceedings commence.

Executive compensation

Advise, design and drafting various forms of compensation and benefit plans and agreements.
Advise, design and draft Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) including providing advice relating to tax.
Advise, design and drafting Long Term Incentive Plans (LTIPs).
Advise on benefits issues in corporate reorganisations and restructuring, including advice on post-closing benefits issues and plan terminations or restructuring.

Restructuring, reorganisation and retrenchments

Counsel and advice extensively in restructuring and retrenchment exercise of large multinational corporations and financial institutions.
Drafting relevant documentation for management of employees being retrenched, subsequent placements and referrals.
Advice on requisite training and re-skilling opportunities to be provided to retrenched employees.
Advice on claims arising out of the retrenchment exercises.

Occupational Health and Safety

Advise on various aspect of compliance with health and safety regulations.
Ensuring board compliance and implementation of appropriate processes and procedures to meet reasonably practicable standards mandated by law.
Advise on SARS, H1N1 (Swine Flu) and other pandemics in relation to instituting best practices to manage compliance with regulatory requirements, leave and other benefit issues, and employee privacy matters.

Mergers and acquisitions

Advise on the transfer of employees resulting from mergers and acquisitions.
Advise on the rationalisation of human resource policies in merged entities.

Contentious employment issues

Enforcement of non-solicitation, non-competition clauses and confidentiality agreements.
Investigation and action against employees for fraud, breach of fiduciary duties, business diversion and theft of confidential information / intellectual property.
Contractual disputes arising from termination or retrenchments of officers and employees, payment and/or clawback of salary, bonus, commissions, stock options etc.
Disputes relating to wrongful termination and constructive dismissal / breach of mutual trust and confidence.
Conducting investigations and/or advising on "Whistle-blower" complaints.
Conducting investigations and/or advising on complaints made in respect of the Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) Guidelines, including workplace harassment, discriminatory practices etc.
Claims and/or investigations by statutory bodies such as the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), Central Provident Fund (CPF) and the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).