Our attorneys have significant experience assessing and resolving issues related to company transactions as well as negotiating and drafting employment-related contracts.
Mergers and Other Transactions
Working alongside transactional lawyers, we identify and resolve workplace issues that may arise during asset sales, purchases, spinoffs, takeovers, and mergers. We examine pension liability; potential or pending employment litigation, administrative complaints, and investigations; employee privacy issues; labor organizing activities; and unfair labor practices. We also review employment agreements, noncompete and confidentiality provisions, employment policies and handbooks, and benefit plans, and we conduct internal audits to help clients evaluate their liability risks.
Workforce Reductions
From initial program development through implementation, we guide clients through the challenges of a reduction in force (RIF). Our attorneys assist clients with RIF programs and compliance with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) and similar state and local laws for both unionized and nonunionized workforces in a variety of circumstances, including downsizings, work relocations, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases, and plant closings.
Executive Agreements
Enforceable agreements that meet the needs of the client's business are imperative. We collaborate to identify categories of business-critical information and other factors to draft agreements that reflect the client's risk threshold. We also monitor legal developments in this area to ensure that agreements are free of technical defects and can withstand legal challenge.
Restrictive Covenants
Employers use confidentiality, non-competition, and non-solicitation agreements to prevent and combat unfair competition. To protect clients from the damage former employees can set in motion, we draft these restrictive covenants and enforce them—whether through negotiation, arbitration, or preliminary and permanent injunctions in state and federal courts. We also represent employers who seek to invalidate overly broad restrictive covenants that apply to their new hires and have defended them against claims of tortious interference and unfair competition.
Experience
Labor and Employment Reorganization Implications
- We advised a prominent Philadelphia-based health system on the labor implications as well as obligations under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) related to the closing of a unionized facility.
- We represented a major petroleum company with structuring a large, national reduction in force, advising it on the selection processes for non-union and union represented workforces, the structure of severance agreements and releases, compliance with the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA), and federal WARN Act issues, as well as compliance with similar state laws.
- We advised a nonprofit membership organization on a reduction in force as well as on structuring and implementing alternatives, including ongoing as well as periodic furloughs for exempt and non-exempt employees, pay and work day reductions, and voluntary termination programs.