Olivia Coles
Senior Associate – Head of Immigration South West & Thames Valley
Employment | Settlement agreements
About Olivia
Olivia is a Senior Associate in our Employment & Immigration team and co-head of the firm’s Immigration team. She has a wide range of experience across employment law and business immigration matters.
Described by The Legal 500 UK as “excellent”, Olivia regularly advises employers on complex HR issues. She has extensive experience in advising employers on disciplinary, grievance and sickness absence processes, dealing with whistleblowing allegations, defending employment tribunal claims, negotiating senior employee exits and drafting bespoke employment documentation.
Olivia is the co-Head of our Immigration team and specialises in advising employers on all aspects of business immigration. These include right to work requirements, applying for sponsor licences, the complex compliance duties for sponsors and corresponding with the Home Office.
Olivia works closely with our Corporate & Real Estate teams to provide employment and immigration advice on the sale or purchase of a business, including advice on the TUPE complexities of purchasing a business from administration and making reports and/or applications to the Home Office where any company involved has a sponsor licence.
Olivia is a member of our Health and Social Care team and regularly advises care providers on both employment and immigration issues. She supports care providers with all aspects of sponsoring care workers including obtaining a sponsor licence, the complexities of sponsoring in the care sector, managing the sponsor licence and training on compliance duties to the Home Office.
Olivia also regularly negotiates exit packages for employees and directors and advises on settlement agreements.
Olivia's recent work:
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Advising a manufacturing client on a collective redundancy at one of its sites, including assisting with trade union involvement and exposure in the media
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Successfully defending claims from a contract worker for harassment related to sex and sexual orientation
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Negotiating a favourable settlement of an unfair dismissal claim following a fundamentally flawed redundancy process
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Advising an international group of companies on the immigration options available for the transfer of director level individuals from European group companies to work at companies within the UK and assisting with applications to the Home Office to put these transfers into place
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Advising a sponsor licence holder on preparing for a Home Office compliance visit and successfully avoiding losing their licence despite various serious breaches of sponsor duties
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Advising an employer on the complexities of sponsoring offshore workers
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Providing immigration training to employers on right to work checks, applying for a sponsor licence and compliance duties to the Home Office.
"These were unchartered waters for us and Olivia did a great hand-holding exercise. She was always there when I needed instant advice and answers to questions."
