We have extensive, in-depth experience of reorganization and restructuring, including cross-border projects, and in implementing operational changes. As your long-term partner in labor law matters, we start work well in advance. We analyze the legal framework, the interests of the negotiating partners and other stakeholders, and develop specific strategies for action, taking into account the external impact for your company. We also support you with our knowledge and experience in preparing a business plan that can stand up to scrutiny by the works council and a labor court.
Together with you, we implement the necessary measures (particularly staff cuts, relocations or transfers of business). You receive support in negotiations on reconciliation of interests and social plans, structural agreement negotiations as well as labor court disputes, all from one source. We have co-developed legal-tech tools that can be used to limit the costs of a social plan and/or to enable you to make a legally sound selection, based on social criteria, that complies with the Federal Labor Court’s case law and corresponds most closely to your wish list.
Specifically, we focus on:
- Negotiations on reconciliation of interests and social plans
- Collective bargaining social plan negotiations
- Arbitration committee proceedings
- Structural collective bargaining agreements
- Restructuring-based collective agreements
- Mass redundancy notifications
- Works council hearings
- Representation in litigation
The Restructuring Practice Group advises companies on the employment law planning and implementation of restructuring projects.
The advice begins with an initial preparation and planning phase. It is crucial that a restructuring decision conceived from a business perspective is translated into an entrepreneurial decision that is viable from an employment law perspective, so that it can withstand possible negotiations with the works council in the context of a reconciliation of interests procedure and later dismissal protection proceedings. For this purpose, PWWL has developed a sample template and supports the management in the preparation and conceptualization of the entrepreneurial decision.
In the implementation phase, PWWL provides support in negotiations with the works council within the framework of a reconciliation of interests procedure and in drawing up a social plan. PWWL has developed a tool to sustainably reduce social plan costs. With the help of this tool, the expected economic disadvantage can be quantified on the basis of labor market statistics. This usually leads to a substantial reduction of the volume of the social plan.
At the same time, we also provide support in optimizing social selection or the application of legal instruments for a reduction in personnel that deviates from social selection in order to realize the reduction in personnel desired by the company. In the further implementation phase, we provide support in the preparation of mass dismissal notices as well as in the conduct of any dismissal protection proceedings with employees who are taking action against the termination of their employment relationship.
PWWL has extensive experience in providing employment law support for restructuring projects and advises you at the highest level every step of the way. In addition, with currently more than 60 professionals working in 6 locations in Germany, PWWL also has sufficient personnel capacities to be able to implement projects on any scale in a timely manner. We regularly work with transfer companies, interim personnel managers, insolvency administrators and lawyers as well as restructuring consultants and can establish all necessary contacts within the scope of a restructuring project and therefore set up a powerful team.
Our Team: Thomas Wahlig, Dr. Jochen Keilich, Dr. Falko Daub, Verena Braeckeler-Kogel, Dr. Alexander Lorenz, Marijke van der Most, Dr. Eva Trost, Dr. Juliane Schwarz, Dr. Constanze Mercedes Merkelbach-Scholtka, Kristina Schilder, Stefanie Götz-Dertinger, Iva Martchev, Karsten Keller
Your contact persons
