Europe - Switzerland

Pestalozzi

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Pestalozzi are a ‘top-level firm’, advising on senior executive disputes and agreements, working time regulations for white- and blue-collar employees, termination of employment agreements, mass redundancies, employee transfers resulting from corporate restructurings, say-on-pay rules for Swiss listed companies, and partial liquidation of pension funds in connection with spin-offs. Department co-head Martin L. Mueller supports clients with the M&A employment aspects, board level disputes, discrimination, whistleblowing, and collective consultation. Christian Roos, who also co-heads the team, has expertise in mass dismissals, social plan negotiations, and restrictive covenants. Andreas Lienhard regularly litigates before labour courts for claims such as summary dismissals, unfair dismissals, bonuses, and gender equality.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘The team quickly came up-to-speed on the matter and immediately offered practical and actionable interventions.’
  • ‘Andreas Lienhard was fully engaged throughout the process, and I always felt he was fully engaged in helping me find a reasonable and balanced solution. Throughout the process he was readily available, professional, engaged and I felt I had a strong 'partner' in my corner.’
  • ‘Provide pragmatic, implementable advice without legal jargon. They engender confidence that they really understand issues from the client’s perspective and seek to provide legally robust but practical solutions which are easy to understand for the non-lawyer and easy to implement successfully.’
  • ‘Christian Roos and Andreas Lienhard are very responsive. Both are clearly very experienced and give confidence that the advice provided is legally sound and would be defensible it was to be tested in court.’
  • ‘A senior team, with deep expertise and a straightforward communication style.’
  • ‘This is a top-level firm for employment work.’
  • ‘The firm and the partnership have very high ethical and professional standards.’
  • ‘Martin Mueller is committed to the assigned tasks and highly responsive whenever needed.’

Key clients

  • Actelion Pharmaceuticals GmbH
  • Agilent Technologies
  • Amazon
  • AXA XL
  • Barry Callebaut
  • Covagen
  • EcoHub
  • Froneri International Limited
  • Glencore
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Maars Holding BV
  • Medos International SA
  • Shire International LLC
  • Synthes GmbH, Synthes Produktions GmbH
  • Takeda Pharmaceuticals
  • TripleLift Inc
  • Vista Equtiy Partners
  • Zimmer Biomet

Work highlights

  • Advises TripleLift on the design and the implementation of the remuneration system for the key employees of the target company, 1plusX AG.
  • Advised Medos International on all aspects of employment law (mass dismissal procedure, retention agreement, exit agreements), the negotiations with the state authorities and all dealings with the unions.

Lawyers

Rising stars

Andreas Lienhard

Andreas Lienhard

Pestalozzi

Andreas Lienhard is a partner and member of Pestalozzi's Litigation & Arbitration Group as well as of the Employment & Pensions Group in Zurich. He specializes in national and international commercial law litigations, debt enforcement proceedings and arbitration. Andreas represents clients in disputes involving private international law, contract law, administrative law and, in particular, employment law, before state courts and in arbitrations, where he acts as both Counsel as well as arbitrator. He regularly litigates before commercial courts and, especially, labor courts. He has particular expertise in representing clients in disputes about, e.g., summary dismissals, unfair and/or invalid ordinary dismissals, bonuses, equity grants, overtime and extra-time, non-compete obligations and gender equality. Andreas is an expert on Swiss civil procedure law, Swiss private international law, arbitration law as well as Swiss contract and employment law. Apart from his professional work, Andreas gained his expertise through his studies in Zurich, especially his work as an assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Haas in the field of domestic and international litigation and arbitration. Andreas completed his studies with a doctoral thesis on litigation law (2012; magna cum laude), an LL.M. in International Business Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2015; distinction) and the CAS in Arbitration offered by the Swiss Arbitration Academy AG (2017, excellent). He is the author of three bestseller textbooks in his field of expertise, where he also regularly publishes articles, contributes to well renowned commentaries and acts as speaker.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Martin L. Mueller, Christian Roos

Other key lawyers

Andreas Lienhard, Martina Herzog