Employment and Incentives

Employment law in the Middle East and North Africa is changing and becoming increasingly complex. With the largest specialist employment team in the region, Al Tamimi & Company provides commercially astute and practical advice to guide employers through the nuances of employment law across the 10 jurisdictions that Al Tamimi operates in.

Advice to trust when the stakes are high

Our clients choose us because, when the stakes are high, they need advice they can trust, and guidance that is clear, practical and effective.

Our excellent, long-standing relationships with government means that we are often among the first to know when laws are changing. And that insight is in demand more than ever, with employment laws constantly changing in this region.

We work with multi-national organisations, large family businesses, government and semi-government entities on the full range of employment law issues.

Clients enjoy the fact that they can get everything they need from us, without the need to use multiple law firms. From future proofing strategies to avoid having to play catch up during financial downturns to incentive strategies and drafting policy documents, we help clients with the full range of non-contentious issues. And where matters are contentious, we have local rights of audience in all of our 10 jurisdictions.

Our multilingual team includes both common and civil law admitted lawyers and we work across the region, with colleagues based in all of Al Tamimi’s offices.

Our full service employment practice offering includes

• Recruitment / dismissal
• Policies, procedures and documentation
• Bonus / incentive schemes
• Corporate support: due diligence
• Business reorganisation
• Disciplinary, grievance and performance improvement
• Mediation / litigation
• Regulatory
• In-house training
• Risk management 
• Workplace investigations / audits
• Settlement negotiations / severance agreements

Examples of our employment work

Non-contentious

• Assisting IKEA Supply AG and Inter IKEA Group on its restructure and transfer of assets involving employees based in Dubai South.
• Part of the core Strategic Working Group, collated by the DIFC, to identify and introduce an alternative end of service gratuity in the form of a DIFC Employees Workplace Savings (DEWS) scheme.
• Advising Nestlé Middle East FZE across several jurisdictions in the Middle East to assess the compliance of Nestlé’s Defined Contribution Plan (“DCP”) with local and Sharia (Islamic) laws.

Contentious

• Representing Microsoft Corporation before the Dubai Courts on multiple claims brought by employees following a redundancy exercise.
• Assisting Citigroup in respect of a cost-free trial application in the DIFC Courts.