Orrick Webinar: Restructuring across the EU and UK – Critical Employment Law Issues

Mike Delikat Partner

New York

He is also the founder of the firm’s Whistleblower Task Force. He previously served as the Managing Director of Orrick’s Litigation Division. The practice group under Mike’s leadership was chosen as one of the top national employment law practices by Law 360.

Chambers USA and Chambers Global has ranked him in Band 1 since it began publishing its rankings, noting he is "a giant of the employment bar, widely regarded as an expert in whistleblowing matters and sex harassment claims,” “sought out by premier clients to handle high-stakes employment litigation and investigations,” and "one of the best lawyers on the East Coast for financial institutions."

Mike has an active trial, arbitration, and appellate practice and handles a number of high-visibility class action and impact cases. He is regularly retained by boards of directors and audit committees to conduct high exposure internal investigations of corporate wrongdoing.

Nicola Whiteley Partner

London

Leading a “straightforward and solutions-focused” team in London who are “exceptionally good and very highly respected globally”, Nicola is listed and noted for her “business-oriented approach” in Lexology Index and recognised by Chambers and Partners as “an excellent lawyer” who is “extremely responsive, commercially astute and pragmatic” and “an absolute pleasure to work with”, with clients praising her “solution orientated” nature, “very good sense of customer service” and her ability to “get to the heart of a legal problem very quickly” and “simplify complex legal matters into understandable chunks”.

Nicola is also recognised as a Leading Partner by Legal 500 UK. Clients describe her as "responsive, quick, pragmatic, and a joy to work with," making in-house counsel's life "a lot easier." Her calm and sensible advice has been invaluable in stressful employment disputes, earning her the reputation of an "outstanding employment law practitioner." Nicola's strong technical expertise, deep understanding of her clients' businesses, and commercial pragmatism make her a "pleasure to work with."

Furthermore, Nicola is lauded as "superb – clever, technical, accessible, commercial, and a thoroughly decent lawyer and human being," with tremendous respect from peers and clients alike. Her broad range of experience and cost-effective solutions are highly valued, as is her ability to provide expert legal advice and counsel tailored to the practical needs of businesses. Nicola is also trusted for independent investigation work and legal ethics-related advice.

She is a member of the International Committee of the Employment Lawyer's Association.

Dr. André Zimmermann, LL.M. Partner

Düsseldorf; Munich

André advises companies of all stages, pre-IPO startups, scaleups, unicorns and international corporations on a wide range of matters, having handled everything from day-to-day practical advice tailored to his clients’ needs, to complex multi-jurisdictional transactions from strategic planning through post-merger integration. Having long-standing experience in negotiating with works councils and unions in restructuring measures of all kind, a special focus of André's practice is on restructurings and headcount reductions.

He has advised on the employment law aspects in over 300 M&A transactions and financing rounds across various industries. Transactional advice includes employment law advice in complex, international technology transactions, M&A projects as well as private equity and venture capital investments, from due diligence to post-closing integration.

André has thorough knowledge of and a genuine passion for the tech industry. Over the last years, André has become the go-to-advisor of several Bay Area tech-companies, leaders in their market and high-growth tech companies. Most recently, he has advised leading global technology companies such as GoPro, Pinterest, GitHub, Nvidia, Sabre, Snap and Splunk on various employment matters.

André has received several awards for his work, inter alia:

• Germany's leading lawyer ranking JUVE recognizes André as "frequently recommended" employment law expert since 2017;
• Best Lawyers and Handelsblatt have listed André as one of Germany's best lawyers in employment law since 2020;
• Germany's leading business weekly WirtschaftsWoche ranked André as one of the top employment lawyers in Germany in 2019;
• IEL Elite, an in-house guide to the world’s leading employment and labour teams, recognized André as a "Key Lawyer" in 2022.

Clients recommend André to JUVE as “straight shooter" and "always refreshingly honest". Our clients praise his "creative and efficient style of working" and "a very practical and efficient style of providing advice", referring to him as "extremely responsive and always accessible" and as "an excellent advocate in court hearings". Clients appreciate André's "clear, sound and pragmatic real-world advice" and his "in-depth knowledge of the tech employment world".

Nadège Owen Partner

Paris

Nadège advises French and international companies on all employment law matters with a recognized experience on employment law aspects of corporate transactions. She regularly deals with employment law related issues arising in the context of restructurings (in particular social plans), mergers and acquisitions as well as more generally on all employment law aspects for domestic and international clients, regarding day to day issues, executive severance and relations with employee representatives and trade unions.  

Prior to joining Orrick, Nadège was an associate for eight years in the Employment, Pensions & Benefits team of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Mario Scofferi Partner

Milan

Mario deals with labor law and industrial relations, assisting Italian and foreign clients, both in judicial and out-of-court matters, related to every aspect of the management of employment relationship, agency relationship and self-employment relationship in all its forms including inter alia:

• drafting of employment agreements (also for managers), drafting of para-subordinate employment agreements (so-called co.co.co.), self-employment agreements, agency agreements;
• drafting additional clauses to employment agreements (for example, non-competition and confidentiality clauses, etc.);
• drafting of incentive plans (including stock option plans);
• remote control of employees;
• change of duties and transfer of employees;
• individual and collective dismissal.

Specifically, Mario assists clients in the negotiation of self-employment and employment agreements, during their respective relationships as well as in their termination, with the stated objective of guaranteeing high quality services according to rigorous detailed studies and constant interaction with the clients.

His clients operate in the tourism, tertiary and services sector, as well as credit and chemistry sector and in the public administration (i.e. companies owned by the latter).

Mario has also gained considerable experience in managing relationships of the companies with the members of their Board as well as in disputes between social security institutions and companies.

Mario is author of numerous articles in the field of labor law published in trade magazines.

He is registered in the Milan Bar Association, as well as being both a member of AGI – (Italian Employment Lawyers Association) and of the Italian Journalists Association.