Lee Harding

Advisory/transactions

• Providing corporate support and advice to buyers and sellers on mergers and acquisitions across many sectors, including advising on document disclosure and due diligence as well as drafting warranties, indemnities, and other commercial documentation
• Representing clients, including FTSE and Fortune 500 companies, on the employment and benefits aspects of cross-border transactions, restructuring, and other compliance exercises, including where there are issues involving works councils, collective consultation, and other protections arising out of the EU Acquired Rights Directive
• Managing global data privacy compliance projects, including advising on the establishment of data privacy agreements, data transfer agreements, and forms of consent with employees
• Providing strategic advice in preventing and responding to cybersecurity breaches—including ensuring that clients have a cybersecurity plan, a dedicated team, and preventative mock rehearsals of breaches—to ensure that companies are able to prevent, investigate, and remediate breaches quickly
• Providing strategic advice to employers (including a US defense company) on the establishment of European Works Councils as well as negotiating and drafting European Works Council Agreements
• Providing strategic advice and analysis to clients on gender pay gap analysis in preparation for anticipated legislation aimed at eliminating the gender pay gap
• Counseling and preparing commercial documentation for employers, including startup companies, on bonus plans, share, and share option plans (including Enterprise Management Incentive schemes and employee shareholder share plans) to incentivize employees and align their financial interests with the success of the business in the most tax-advantageous way
• Advising on UK pension issues, including automatic enrollment obligations and liabilities relating to defined benefit pension schemes
• Advising employers on issues relating to trade union recognition and industrial action, including helping to formulate strategies for avoiding business disruption (such as recognition by a more militant union or strikes) through a carefully orchestrated internal PR campaign and adopting a robust approach to litigation
• Counseling employers on complex employment disputes for clients—often where there is a regulatory angle under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime and/or where there are allegations of whistleblowing—and helping clients contain those disputes in a way that minimizes litigation risk as well as reputational and financial damage
• Advising clients (including one of the oldest banks in the world) on the regulation of bankers’ bonuses, such as the requirements for claw back and malus under the relevant UK Remuneration Codes and the use of role-based allowances in relation to the cap on bankers’ bonuses
• Counseling challenger banks on the requirements under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime and preparing necessary commercial documentation and training for clients, including in relation to Statements of Responsibility, Responsibility Maps, and compliance with Conduct Rules

Litigation

• Managing complex and high-value employment tribunal litigation—including high-value matters involving multiple claimants—and managing the formulation of litigation strategy to defend claims or settle them on commercially acceptable terms
• Working closely with IT forensic experts in searching for and gathering evidence related to unlawful team move claims on behalf of employers, including preparing and negotiating search protocols
• Defending high-value breach of contract claims against senior executives in the London High Court
• Issuing legal proceedings against employees alleged to have breached their duties of fidelity and other obligations (including in relation to confidential information) to obtain “springboard relief” and/or “Wrotham Park damages”
• Acting for either the “gatekeeper” or “poacher” in time-sensitive cases involving applications for injunctive relief where employees are said to have breached restrictive covenants