PARTNER
Jérôme Debost
Labour and Employment Law
Jérôme, one of Almain’s founders, specialises in Labour and Employment Law.
His main practice area is giving labour and employment law advice to foreign companies employing staff in France.
Jérôme also advises certain French companies and start-ups, providing support in M&A transactions or offering day-to-day guidance and assistance.
In his advisory capacity, Jérôme has handled the implementation of large-scale workforce restructuring plans, sometimes involving mass redundancies combined with an employment protection plan.
He has also defended employers in proceedings challenging economic redundancies and in other Employment Tribunal disputes.
He provides labour law support for M&A transactions (legal due diligence, initiating the information and consultation process with employee representative bodies, providing advice, where necessary, on the formalities imposed under the Hamon Act and on necessary pre-closing and post-closing measures).
- Advising the French subsidiaries of a Spanish wind energy group (employment litigation, works council elections, in-house collective agreements on working hours and remote working, lemployee posting and transfer of staff, template employment contracts, setting up a bonus plan, etc.)
- Advising the French subsidiaries of a US hotel group (mitigating risks of ‘Economic and Social Unit’ and of illegal loan of staff, advising on hotel management services agreements, renegotiating an optional profit-sharing plan, etc.)
- Advising a US luxury hotel network management corporation (furlough scheme, drafting employment contracts and riders/amendments thereto, employment termination negotiations, etc.)
- Advising the French subsidiary of a Singapore luxury hotel services group (e.g. labour law aspects of a hotel management services agreement)
- Advising a French luxury hotel bookings platform (template employment contracts, intra-group transfer of employees, etc.)
- Advising the French subsidiaries of an American group specialized in 3D modeling software and solutions (e.g. negotiating and implementing a top manager’s exit)
- Advising the French subsidiary of a US insurance and claim management software solutions corporation (process with works council, Covid-related furlough scheme, collective redundancies, etc.)
- Advising a French private equity fund (advice in the context of an acquisition project of a group in the process of implementing a mass layoff plan, top management packages, etc.)
- Advising the French subsidiary of a UK investment fund (selecting the applicable collective labour agreement, template employment contract)
- Advising a Dutch baby stroller manufacturer (Sunday work, employee-bullying complaint, negotiations of employee departures, dismissals, settlements, etc.)
- Advising an Aubusson tapestry manufacturer (dismissals, employment contracts, bonus schemes, employment litigation, etc.)
- Advising a manufacturer of diabetes treatment automation devices (template employment contracts, works council consultation process, etc.)
- Advising the French subsidiaries of a Dutch private bank (transposing European and Dutch bonus scheme rules into French law, implementing bonus schemes, etc.)
- Advising a German refractory furnaces manufacturer in the context of the closure of its French subsidiary (drawing-up and implementing a collective redundancy plan and a social plan, cost estimate, employee representatives information and consultation process, negotiations with the union, crisis management -strike, plant blockades-, redundancies of employee representatives, individual settlement agreements, etc.)
- Advising an Irish dairy industry group on the winding up of its French subsidiary*
- Advising a US microchip manufacturer (series of mass lay-offs followed by the closure of its French subsidiary)*
- Advising a US amusement park and entertainment group (mass layoff plan, winding up of a subsidiary)*
- Advising an American group specialized in the purchase and resale of industrial assets on the social aspects of the takeover of chemical assets of a French industrial site
- Advising a Canadian group on the labour law aspects of filing a takeover offer for a solar energy company in the context of a bankruptcy process
- Advising a group of French agricultural cooperatives (negotiating and implementing a post-acquisition transition phase and a top managers/founders exit package)
- Advising investment funds / private equity funds (phantom share plans and other employee bonus schemes, employment contracts, golden parachute clauses, etc.)
- Advising the subsidiary of a Lebanese international transport logistics company (dismissals, employment litigation, restrucuring plan)
- Advising a German group with respect to its French subsidiaries (employment litigation, settlement agreements, changes in whistle-blowing regulations, regulations on mass lay-offs and social plans, etc.)
- Advising an alcoholic drink ordering platform (managing the risk of delivery personnel contracts being reclassified as employment contracts)
French think-tank of labor and employment lawyers advising corporations/employers (AvoSial)
- Master’s degree in business law – University of Paris II – Panthéon-Assas
- LLM University of San Diego (USA)
French, English
IF YOU WEREN’T A LAWYER, WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
A sportsman, artist or poet, shaking up the established order
A CRAZY AMBITION?
Find a perfect piece of land to plant my own vineyard in Burgundy where I have family ties
A GOOD DEED FOR THE PLANET?
Printing as little as possible and reducing my carbon footprint as much as possible (including by washing as little as possible!)