England - South East • Employment
Shoosmiths LLP
Shoosmiths LLP houses a ‘hugely knowledgeable’ team, which advises a diverse and lucrative client roster, which notably includes Everyman Media, Turtle Bay and WeWork International. The ‘exceptional’ Gwynneth Tan heads up the practice in Milton Keynes, and has longstanding experience in handling employee data issues, TUPE outsourcing projects, and post-termination restrictions. ‘Go-to employment guru’ Simon Fennell is adept at acting in both contentious and non-contentious matters surrounding employment tribunals and the TUPE element of transactions.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘Gwynneth Tan is excellent, she knows her stuff, is responsive, and has a great team under her. Most importantly she is an absolute pleasure to work with. Highly recommended!’
‘Gwynneth Tan is exceptionally easy to talk to and makes the most complex matters straight forward with clear step by step guidance, turn around time is also very good.’
‘A very well disciplined and friendly team who make the complicated aspects of law easier to understand for clients. The integration of the team with other specialist areas within the business such as litigation works exceptionally well.'
‘Gwynneth Tan is an exceptional lawyer. Her listening skills and interpersonal skills are outstanding and she has the ability to put clients at ease with her no nonsense, common sense approach to situations. Would highly recommend Gwynneth for all employment law and related issues.’
- 'The service I get is second to none, and Simon Fennell is my go-to employment guru. Simon is my go-to employment specialist and I would not go elsewhere. He has common sense and an extremely commercial approach.’
‘This is an excellent practice - the support they provide to our business on employment issues is invaluable. They are thorough, yet fast to deal with anything we need assistance with.'
‘The team at Shoosmiths is by far the best team I have ever worked with in my career. They are not only hugely knowledgeable, but also provide pragmatic advice on both non-contentious and contentious work.'
‘Simon Fennell is a fantastic asset to Shoosmiths. He provides workable solutions that both mitigate risk and achieve commercial aims. He is a pleasure to work with. I cannot recommend him highly enough.’
Key clients
- The White Company (UK) Limited
- H&M UK Ltd
- Open University
- University of Northampton
- BEN – Motor and Allied Trades Benevolent Fund
- British American Tobacco
- Planet Organic
- Volkswagen Group
- Nissan Motor (GB)
- Renault Europe Group
- Scania (Great Britain)
- Playground Games
- Fossil (UK)
- Ann Summers
- FutureLearn
- Canal & River Trust
- Keysoe International Limited
- Waam3D Limited
- Full Support Healthcare Limited
- Design Reality Limited
- Solifi Ltd
- Tensator
- Electrolux plc
- Engineering Industry Construction Board (ECITB)
- Coopervision
- WeWork International
- Tingdene Group
- Billing Finance
- Phoenix Datacom (Now Red Helix Ltd)
- The Francis Crick Institute
- Key Media UK Limited
Work highlights
- Advising Everyman on conduct and performance matters, long-term sickness absence and disabilities, and on projects relating to policy and employee development.
- Advised Nissan Motor GB Ltd on a series of strategic disposals of its West Way Nissan dealership network, in three phases, to established third party automotive dealership groups.
- Advising The White Company (UK) Ltd, dispensing specific TUPE project advice in connection to the completion of the outsourcing of the warehouse provision in Swan Valley, Northamptonshire to Wincanton Logistics.
Lawyers
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Next Generation Partners
Shoosmiths LLP
Simon is a Partner in the Employment team based in Milton Keynes. Simon is an experienced employment specialist who provides advice to a number of large commercial clients, many of whom are household names, on all aspects of employment law. Simon has many years of experience working with private and public sector clients and is the main contact for employment work with a local university and many well established organisations in the retail and manufacturing sectors. Simon is the lead employment contact for a number of our automotive clients and is frequently referred to by these clients as the "go to" individual when drafting and negotiating their contractual TUPE provisions. Simon is renowned for delivering advice in a straightforward and easy to understand manner and his down to earth approach puts clients and witnesses at ease. His recent work includes: • acting as independent appeal chair with delegated responsibility to a disciplinary process which had seen a director/shareholder and manager dismissed from the business. Simon conducted interviews with all relevant witnesses and considered a significant volume of evidence before preparing a detailed outcome report. In the successful judgment, the Employment Judge stated that the original process was flawed but those defects were corrected on appeal by the ‘excellent, thorough, thought and balanced rehearing by Mr Fennell’ • assisting a number of private sector organisations with multi-level redundancy and restructuring processes; • pre-contract negotiations to TUPE (transfer of undertakings) clauses; and • support to the corporate team with M&A work. Simon writes and provides training sessions for clients on a range of subjects and is a regular speaker at Shoosmiths' national employment webinars. Simon is a member of the Employment Lawyer's Association and in 2023 contributed to the ELA's response to government changes to whistleblowing legislation.
Practice head
The lawyer(s) leading their teams.
Gwynneth Tan