Employment law expert Audrey advises on sensitive HR and recruitment issues, senior executive appointments and exits, restructuring and redundancies. She advises many large organisations and household names, varying from global corporates and PLCs to charities and chartered entities on the full hiring process, from onboarding to exits.
Audrey is also very experienced in appearing at Employment Tribunals working alongside expert bodies such as ACAS, CBI and CityHR on diversity and inclusion, gender and ethnic issues to defend many cases relating to pay discrimination.
Very effective in navigating, often tricky, situations in a very supportive, practical, and pragmatic way – with good humour.
Garry Senff, Group Talent Director, FirstGroup plc
Expertise
- HR and recruitment issues
- Investigations
- Diversity, equality and discrimination
- Senior executive appointments and exits
- Terminations
- Restructuring
- Redundancies
- Board disputes
- Employment litigation and workplace mediations
Experience
General
- Advised a statutory body on bullying allegations, a non-departmental public body on a large-scale investigation and several listed companies on the corporate response to discrimination and whistleblowing complaints.
- Provided training to a privately owned, global organisation on diversity and respect/dignity at work, having worked with them on a number of sensitive race and sexual harassment investigations and grievances.
- Collaborated with HR, legal and reward experts in a manufacturing business, on gender and ethnic pay reporting obligations and diversity action plans to address equity issues.
- Defended a cross-border whistleblowing claim in the Employment Tribunal on behalf of a global telecoms business.
- Acted on the strike-out of a disability and race discrimination claim brought against a large transport group.
- Advised a plc entity on the legal issues and their policy with regard to employee directors and related misconduct concerns.
Media
- Advised a number of TMT clients on site reductions, restructuring, redundancies, site closures, and changes to terms and conditions.
- Acted as project lead to provide post-merger integration advice on a cross-border acquisition to a NASDAQ listed technology and manufacturing business.
- Led the employment input on a site disposal for a TMT client group, which included complex post-completion financial and management commitments.
- Advised a US and European tech business on a sensitive and complex, multi-party bullying and harassment investigation, as well as on follow-up remedial action involving executive-level staff.
- Provided key recommendations and coordinated cross-border advice on a global reduction in force VR policy and enhanced severance terms for a technology client.
Life Sciences
- Advised a privately owned bio sciences business on executive severance arrangements.
- Working with the in-house team of a research institute on collaboration agreements underpinned by secondment arrangements.
- Providing expert assessment on whistleblowing risks to a major US pharmaceutical business.
- Supporting a pharmaceutical client’s in-house legal and privacy teams with a pre-litigation subject access request advice and working with their e-disclosure team to assess relevance, commercial risks and third-party privacy issues.
- Advising a US-owned, UK-based medical devices business on post-termination restraints in respect of a number of senior and sales executive recruitment decisions.
Retail
- Represented a European retail business on the exit of their UK branch CEO.
- Defended a well- known retailer on an unfair dismissal and race claim brought by a dismissed employee following a sensitive sexual harassment investigation.
- Advised a major retailer on the implementation of furlough arrangements.
- Worked with the HR team and retail director on holiday pay and national minimum wage issues.
- Represented a retail client on a complex claim of race discrimination and victimisation.
Please note: The experience list above may include examples of work completed prior to joining Keystone Law.
Recognition
Recognised by Best Lawyers (UK) in the practice area of Employment Law (2009-2024)
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Employment Law Leader of the Year 2021 The Reward 300
A member of CityHR’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce and contributing author to the association’s Inspiring Journeys to Race Equality publication to support organisational progress on race equity.
Audrey’s expertise in discrimination law has led to being invited to give evidence to Parliamentary Select Committees on disability discrimination and gender disparity.
Audrey has also been recognised in the legal directories:
“thorough grasp of the commercial practicalities of so many aspects of employment law and its practical application in the workplace” Chambers UK
“an outstanding level of knowledge and professionalism” Chambers UK
Career
Audrey qualified as a solicitor in 1989. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2021, she worked at the following firms:
- Simmons & Simmons
- Fox Williams
- Eversheds