Labor Law, Employment & Pension

We are advising our clients regarding all aspects of (individual and collective) labor and employment law, including works constitution, collective bargaining, restructuring and outsourcing. Our clients are mainly Japanese companies in Germany and European and US companies in Japan. Often we are entrusted with restructurings or transaction work that entail a variety of labor law related issues. In these cases, our advice ranges from employment law due diligence, over respective provisions in the transactional documents and incentive and retention programs for the management to post merger integration and restructuring matters such as secondments or (mass) dismissals.

Our clients appreciate, that we can compare the situation in Japan with the situation in Europe and thus explain the differences rather than the whole system which is much more efficient and less costly.

General labor, employment & pension law advice that we give includes in particular advising on:

  • drafting, reviewing and negotiating (fix term and time limited) employment agreements, service agreements for managers and secondment agreements as well as termination/settlement agreements with employees and managers
  • restructuring related matters such as mass dismissals, social plans and reconciliation of interest agreements
  • incentive systems, stock option schemes and other corporate benefit programs
  • company pension schemes and pension plans
  • employee inventions and copyrights
  • managers’ (personal) liabilities
  • governance and compliance issues
  • (post-contractual) non-compete obligations
  • (international) guidelines for employees and managers including e.g. internet use, ethics, travel guidelines, corporate governance and compliance
  • labor law aspects of group restructurings and reorganizations
  • labor law related issues in M&A and joint-venture transactions
  • negotiation of collective agreements with the works council (and trade unions)
  • corporate restructuring, redundancy programs and compensation plans
  • labor litigation

Our team includes lawyers fluent in Japanese, English, German, Chinese, Spanish and French. This allows us to read, understand and comment on documents in these languages without translation and we can also communicate in these languages.