Overview

Nick Dent focuses on advising clients in the financial and professional services and media sectors on the full range of their employment issues, including high-value discrimination and bonus claims. Nick has particular experience in advising on collective redundancies, having advised a national newspaper on a complex restructuring and the associated union consultation, managed a redundancy programme across 19 countries and managed a leading case on the law of collective redundancies in the Tribunal and EAT. He also frequently advises on restrictive covenant disputes and the employment aspects of outsourcing and insolvency-related and other corporate transactions, as well as issues at the interface between employment law and financial regulation and data protection law.

Nick regularly speaks at internal and external seminars.

Representative Experience

Restrictive covenants/injunctions

• Advising the commodity price reporting agency Argus Media on ‎its enforcement in High ‎Court injunction proceedings ‎and a speedy trial in December 2018 of a 9 month non-‎competition ‎covenant and client solicitation and dealing covenants
• Advising a leading university on the defence of a High ‎Court application by an academic to ‎revoke his suspension
• Advising a wealth management firm on its recruitment of 13 ‎employees from a competitor, without ‎any litigation ensuing
• Advising a PR and media relations company on a ‎resolution, shortly before the hearing of an ‎injunction, of a ‎disputed team move, including negotiations with five separate sets ‎of lawyers
• Advising a Lloyd’s underwriting firm on its defence of an ‎application for an injunction following the ‎recruitment of a team ‎from a competitor, and on the subsequent regulatory investigation ‎by Lloyd’s

Restructuring/collective issues

• Coordinating for Engelhart Commodity Trading Partners on a ‎global basis across 21 jurisdictions advice ‎on its 2016 restructuring
• Advising the Financial Times on all its employment law issues since ‎‎2005, including the restructuring of ‎its print and online Editorial ‎functions to create the New Newsroom and the associated union ‎‎consultation
• Advising on the defence in the Employment Tribunal ‎and Employment Appeals Tribunal in ‎MSF v Refuge Assurance, a ‎leading reported case on collective redundancies
• Advising Whirlpool on the staged reduction in force of its Bristol ‎factory‎
• Advising on the employment aspects of two major investment ‎banking mergers, one on secondment to the investment bank
• Advising a publishing company on a wholesale review of its use of ‎independent contractors

Employment Tribunal litigation

• Advising a global corporate bank on a disability discrimination claim for career loss damages ‎after 17 days in the Tribunal, including the strike-out of ‎an associated claim against its chief executive personally
• Advising a media company on a race discrimination claim brought ‎by a group of continuing employees, ‎including the ‎defence of Employment Tribunal proceedings and a smooth ‎resolution of ‎other issues relating to one of the claimants
• Advising a professional services company to a ‎resolution on a complex dispute over an 18 ‎month period with an ‎employee with likely undiagnosed mental health issues who refused ‎to take ‎medical advice, with interlocking performance management ‎and disciplinary issues, multiple ‎grievances ‎and an Employment ‎Tribunal claim
• Advising a leading management consultancy firm on a long-‎running race and religious discrimination ‎claim brought in the UK ‎and through an EEOC application in the US, arising out of ‎incidents which took ‎place in the Middle East

Regulatory/ financial services

• Advising on issues at the intersection of employment law and ‎financial services regulation, such as employment disciplinary issues ‎being pursued in tandem with FCA investigations; the ‎Remuneration Code; and the Senior Managers and Certification ‎Regime
• Advising financial institutions, hedge funds and asset and wealth ‎managers on the full range of employee relations issues, from ‎collective redundancies to numerous seven figure claims for sex, ‎race, disability discrimination and whistleblowing and team moves ‎and other restrictive covenant disputes
• Advising a banking executive on his participation in a regulatory ‎investigation conducted by an investment bank at the behest of the ‎SEC and FCA
• A six month secondment to a clearing bank
• Advising private equity firms, hedge funds and executives on ‎complex remuneration structures such as carried interest and co-‎investment schemes and their impact on termination of ‎employment
• Advising on partnership disputes, including contractual disputes ‎and sex discrimination and disability discrimination claims
• Advising private equity firms on the key employee relations issues ‎arising in their investee companies, and investee company ‎management teams on their position on their entry to and exit ‎from PE ownership

Corporate support

• Advising data analytics company Aimia on the employment aspects ‎its disposal and restructuring ‎programme from 2017 to date, ‎including the disposal of its Nectar business to Sainsbury’s
• Advising Banco Santander on the employment aspects of its series ‎of acquisitions in 2008 and the ‎subsequent integration
• Advising on the employment aspects of numerous M&A ‎transactions, including the acquisition by ‎Interbrew of Bass ‎Brewers and Whitbread’s brewing business and the acquisition of ‎Asda by Walmart
• Advising on numerous insolvency transactions, including the ‎wind-down of the New Millenium ‎Experience Company which ‎operated the Millennium Dome
• Advising on numerous outsourcing transactions, including an ‎investment bank on a significant ‎outsourcing of IT activities across ‎the US and UK

Professional History

• Partner, Locke Lord LLP Lord (UK) LLP
• Partner, Clyde & Co LLP and its predecessor Barlow Lyde & Gilbert LLP (2006-2018)/li>
• Senior Associate, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert LLP (2005-2006)
• Senior Associate, Allen & Overy LLP (2003-2005)
• Associate and Senior Associate, Simmons & Simmons LLP (1996-2003)
• Trainee, Simmons & Simmons LLP (1994-1996)
• Admitted as a Solicitor in England and Wales (1996)