Oliver Spratt
Senior Counsel
Areas of Focus
- Labor & Employment
- Labor & Employment Issues in Restructuring and Corporate Transactions
- Corporate & Finance
- Labor Relations Strategic Advice & Counseling
- Corporate Governance
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Executive Disputes & Agreements
- Oliver is senior counsel in the London office. He provides strategic advice to domestic and international clients on the full spectrum of contentious and non-contentious employment law issues.
- Oliver works with clients across a range of industry sectors on employer/employee issues arising throughout the employment lifecycle from recruitment to termination. He has particular experience advising on the “people” aspects of major, cross-border transactions.
- He is described by clients as "exceptional: extremely responsive, commercial and pragmatic, he quickly became a trusted advisor".
Oliver regularly works alongside colleagues in the corporate and tech transactions teams where he advises clients that are undertaking complex corporate transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and business restructuring, on employment issues. He also advises on the employment aspects arising out of major initiatives, such as global outsourcing projects, restructurings and global policy changes.
Much of Oliver’s work involves advising international clients on cross-border employment matters, and he has significant experience working with local employment counsel to deliver commercial and pragmatic solutions to a broad range of multi-jurisdictional employment law issues.
Oliver has an extensive employment advisory and contentious practice, which includes advising employers on sensitive disputes involving senior executives and he has represented employers in the Employment Tribunal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal and the Supreme Court, defending sensitive, high-value claims, such as unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing and breach of contract. He has advised clients on matters involving the misappropriation of confidential information by current and former employees and breaches of restrictive covenants and he has both advised on and led workplace investigations for some of the world’s largest companies.
In the past, Oliver has been seconded to two multinational businesses – one in the oil and gas sector and another in the technology sector.
Oliver has an extensive pro bono practice, and he sits on the Royal Courts of Justice Citizens Advice Bureau's Service Delivery Committee.
Prior to joining Akin, Oliver was Counsel at another U.S. firm.
Oliver is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales.
Non-Contentious
- Advising Visa on all employment-related aspects of its high-profile acquisition of Featurespace.
- Advising SoftBank on all employment-related matters arising out of its acquisition of Graphcore.
- Principal employment lawyer advising Imerys on its high-profile joint venture with British Lithium.
- Advising Kyowa Kirin on all employment matters arising out of its take private acquisition of Orchard Therapeutics PLC.
- Acting as principal employment law adviser to a global manufacturing client on employment aspects of its acquisition of another global business. The acquisition impacted 1,300 employees across 13 jurisdictions and involved the automatic transfer of employees pursuant to the Acquired Rights Directive and equivalent laws outside the EU.
- Advising a Fortune 500 manufacturing client on the employment aspects of two global outsourcing projects valuing in excess of $600m.
Advisory and Contentious
- Principal employment advisor to a UK-based private equity firm, providing employment law support on all employment law issues affecting the firm and its portfolio companies, including advising on recruitment of senior executives, sensitive performance management issues, board level restructurings and dismissals.
- Advising on the employment aspects of the wind-down of a global investment fund, including advising on UK redundancy processes, coordinating advice from local counsel and negotiating the successful settlement of multi-million dollar claims from senior employees impacted by the process in the UK and the USA.
- Advising a global payments processor on restraint of trade issues, workplace investigations and working with local counsel to secure a successful defence of claims brought by a former executive in the Spanish employment courts.
- Advising a global consultancy firm on the employment law and employee privacy implications of its proposed DEI strategies for the workforce, including drafting employee correspondence and coordinating advice across seven jurisdictions.
- Advising one of the world’s largest technology companies on all aspects of an investigation into potential policy breaches by senior employees, including advising on investigation strategy, leading investigation meetings and producing a detailed report of findings and recommended approach.
- Advising a global bank on its successful defense of a complex, high-value and highly sensitive whistleblowing claim in the UK Employment Tribunal.
- Advising a global oil and gas company on the successful mediation of claims of sex and maternity discrimination, which had been brought by an employee in the UK Employment Tribunal.
- Advising a number of well-known employers on senior employee exits.
