Employment Law

The specialist lawyers at Tanner De Witt have acted in several of the leading reported cases in Hong Kong over the last 10 years and are regular speakers to employers, business groups and human resource professionals.

We act for many major employers as well as senior and high-profile employees in a wide range of industry sectors including banking and finance, publishing, manufacturing and professional services.

Through our experience and knowledge we aim to provide quality, cost-effective and commercial legal advice. Further, through our experience we are also able to offer tactical and common sense guidance on best practice to ensure the best overall result for the client, including issues such as performance management, rewards and restriction structures, exit strategies and mediation.

Our Services

Tanner De Witt has considerable experience acting in the specialised areas of Employment and Human Resources law including providing advice and handling disputes relating to:

• Terminations and entitlements
• Restrictive covenants, garden leave and "poison pills"
• Confidentiality
• Redundancy, retrenchment and separation, including separation agreements
• Employment contracts, secondments and handbooks
• Benefits, including housing issues, bonuses including discretionary bonus
• Discrimination and harassment, including anti-discrimination training
• Data privacy

Our Experience

Examples of our experience include:

• Acting for one of the world's leading global brokerage organisations in a substantial injunction application to enforce post-termination covenants against brokers leaving to join a major competitor. This resulted in an interlocutory order enforcing until trial 12-month restrictions against competing in Hong Kong, dealing with and soliciting clients;
• Acting in a substantial action based on alleged improper conduct and use of confidential information by a group of former Hong Kong employees of a UK-based manufacturer who left en masse to join a competitor. This resulted in an interlocutory order "springboard" injunction being obtained for the company;
• Acting for an employee in a dispute in excess of US$1M with a large investment bank, including High Court proceedings;
• Acting for employees to defend and advise on actions by their former employer, a major investment house, to enforce non-compete provisions against them;
• Advising and acting for an employee in a serious sexual-harassment and victimisation claim against an employer bank; and
• Advising a major US listed financial institution, on a broad range of employment issues including:
  • Providing and coordinating advice throughout the region (including Japan, Korea and Singapore) on post-termination restrictions, garden leave, notice periods and possible damages exposure for a major regional recruitment program; and
  • Acting in disputes and claims by competitors and former employers.