Tessa is a Senior Associate in the Employment team.
Working for a number of FTSE 100 and 250 companies with extensive workforces, in sectors as diverse as retail, transport, energy and financial services. Tessa provides her client’s HR teams with strategic and operational advice on all aspects of employee management, including business restructures, change management, sickness absence, grievance and disciplinary procedures and managed exits. Tessa also has experience in conducting investigations on behalf of clients.
Where an employment issue escalates into a tribunal claim, Tessa represents her employer clients in complex and high-value claims, including discrimination and whistleblowing claims with significant reputational risk. She handles the claim from the outset, drafting the pleadings, preparing for preliminary hearings, conducting disclosure, drafting witness statements and preparing the case for hearing.
Recent examples of how Tessa has supported clients include:
- successfully defending a complex and high value whistleblowing claim brought by a former member of the executive team in a manufacturing company;
- advising a FTSE 100 distributor of plumbing and heating products on the transfer of a number of key head office functions to the USA and the resulting redundancy programme in the UK;
- conducting an independent investigation into allegations of race discrimination and whistleblowing detriment raised by a third-party contractor to an investment bank via its internal whistleblowing procedures; and
- advising a food and beverage provider on the exit of its UK general manager following allegations of expenses fraud.