Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Employment.

Chris is a partner in the employment team in London, with more than 25 years’ experience as a UK employment law specialist. His practice covers all aspects of English employment law, ranging from HR advisory to cross border compliance, trade union and employee relations issues, collective redundancies/restructuring, restrictive covenants, and whistleblowing. Chris also advises on employment tribunal claims, handling senior level grievances/disciplinaries and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regulatory issues. As one of our North America group lead partners, his role includes working regularly with US and Canadian clients.

A CEDR accredited mediator, Chris has a keen interest in employment and commercial mediation. From 2011 to 2017, Chris was the CBI’s governing body representative for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a specialised agency in the United Nations. Consequently, he fully understands the ILO’s supervisory system and the challenges faced by unionised businesses, especially those that are alleged to have breached ILO freedom of association and collective bargaining conventions. He has been named in the UK Top 100 Corporate Modern Slavery Influencers’ Index, which acknowledges individuals from all business sectors who are raising awareness of modern slavery and labour exploitation. Since 2019, he has collaborated with the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) by sitting on their disciplinary panels to determine cases of breaches of APSCA’s code of professional standards. Chris was previously head of employment at a London-based international law firm.

Trained Gryll & Paige Solicitors; qualified 1997; assistant solicitor Nalders Solicitors 1997-2001; assistant solicitor Clarks Legal 2001-04; partner Clarks Legal 2004-07; partner and head of employment Davies Arnold Cooper 2007-11; partner DAC Beachcroft LLP 2011-13; partner Penningtons Manches Cooper 2013-to date.

ELA; CIPD; American Bar Association.

Richard Lander secondary school, Truro; De Montfort University (2004 LLB (Hons) 2(1)); 2005 LPC, commendation).