Helena PiresSenior Lawyer

I advise on all aspects of the employment relationship from recruitment to termination, including effective employee management and severance arrangements with senior employees and executives. I have experience of coordinating employment law advice with lawyers across the United States and EMEA on multi jurisdictional transactions and projects. I additionally have experience of dealing with business immigration issues including applications for indefinite leave to remain, Tier 2 visas and sponsorship licence applications.

Employment / LS In-house

My experience includes:

• advising on day to day HR queries covering a variety of issues including managing sickness absence, disciplinary and grievance procedures (including reviewing investigation reports, preparation of scripts for hearings and reviewing decision letters), home-working and holiday pay
• advising HR advisors globally on issues affecting UK employees on international assignment, including the impact of termination or repatriation on the employee’s immigration status in the UK
• assisting clients with various tribunal claims including unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing, breach of contract and unlawful deductions from wages
• experience of providing transactional support on multi-jurisdictional transactions including: co-ordinating local counsel globally; advising on issues from an employment context as well as highlighting pensions, share options and data protection/privacy issues; and instructing and managing external specialists

I have experience of advising clients in a variety of sectors including technology, energy, life sciences, hotels and leisure and financial services

• providing advice on managing the dismissal of the Chief Executive Officer of independent international insurance and reinsurance broker including negotiating terms of a settlement agreement and liaising with the regulatory experts to ensure the client was meeting its obligations with the FCA
• assisting in-house counsel of an international oil and gas company with a voluntary redundancy exercise of 300 employees including verifying contracts of employment for PILONs and garden leave provisions, preparing answers for FAQs used as part of the exercise and handling grievances raised as a result of the exercise
• assisting the UK arm of an international multi-speciality health care company with a collective redundancy exercise involving 120 employees. This included conducting meetings with individual employees to confirm roles were redundant and presenting employees with an enhanced severance package