The success of outsourcing strategies globally has encouraged their implementation across more and more areas of business activity. Businesses have found that outsourcing creates more options and greater strategic leverage and they are often keen to extend it across their operations. In each of our UK offices we have teams of experienced lawyers advising clients in relation to redundancy and reorganisation programmes, business transfers and outsourcing, onshore and offshore. Our UK team combines with resources overseas to deliver cross-border advice in respect of international reorganisation projects. Read More

 

In each of our UK offices we have teams of experienced lawyers advising clients in relation to redundancy and reorganisation programmes, business transfers and outsourcing, onshore and offshore. Our UK team combines with resources overseas to deliver cross-border advice in respect of international reorganisation projects.

We have successfully worked with client companies and service providers and understand fully the issues that arise at every stage of outsourcing. We provide advice on all areas of management of human resources in the outsourcing process from strategic planning to the management of change and business culture. We also advise businesses acquiring the human resources of an outsourced function. Working with employers, we help assess the financial and non-financial impacts that the transfer of staff will have on human resources and operations.

We typically deliver advice in relation to:

• Planning the exercise - advice in relation to timing, consultation and communication is a key feature of our service.
• Financial and Risk Analysis - we are often on hand to advise on the risk of potential litigation emanating from either the collective consultation process or individual dismissals.
• The Trade Union response - we often act in unionised environments where resistance to change is in issue and the threat of litigation real.
• Creating the structure for consultation - where no union exists we assist in the process for electing representation and can also deliver training for those representatives.
• Negotiation of the people aspect of commercial agreements - this is a key aspect of any outsourcing arrangement ensuring risk is apportioned in an appropriate manner.
• Post-transaction change management and integration - this is a challenge for any business and we have in-depth experience of advising and guiding clients through the process.

Examples of our work

• acting for Barclays in a £400m offshore outsourcing project, one of the largest outsourcing projects ever, involving 900 staff transferring to Accenture over three years
• acting for the service provider in numerous MOD projects e.g. outsourcing telecommunications and maintenance of army vehicles
• acting for funders or a consortium in PFI projects
• recent success in the Court of Appeal in Fairhurst Ward Abbotts v Botes Building and Others, a leading TUPE outsourcing case. Acting for the successful contractor in a dispute about building maintenance contracts in local governments
• acting for leading manufacturers in outsourcings to India and China

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