Flichy Grangé Avocats

The firm:

Flichy Grangé Avocats is a leading employment and labour law firm in France, with a team of 27 partners, one consultant, 11 counsels, and 53 associates, all dedicated to labour law. The team works closely with human resource directors and top management to proactively address and leverage potential changes, ensuring clients receive effective legal guidance both in and out of court.

The firm serves a diverse clientele across various sectors, including industry, financial services, IT, mass media, and telecoms. It caters to a wide range of organizations, from major French and international groups, employers’ associations, to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), offering them the benefit of its extensive experience and pragmatic advice for daily labour management. Additionally, the public sector and law firms from France and abroad, which lack internal expertise, also constitute part of the firm's client base.

To support its clients further, Flichy Grangé Avocats provides an exclusive legal monitoring service, empowering them to seize new opportunities presented by developments in case law and legislation.

Areas of practice:

With a total of 91 lawyers, Flichy Grangé Avocats stands out as a leading force in the French employment and labour law sector. Given the ever-changing nature of this field, the firm provides daily legal updates and analyses from top-tier experts. This service ensures that clients can promptly benefit from legislative or case law developments, or can create tailored solutions for any arising issues.

Flichy Grangé Avocats offers comprehensive assistance across all aspects of labour and employment law, boasting a particularly distinguished expertise in the following areas:

International employment/labour : Flichy Grangé Avocats delivers expert legal advice to international businesses aiming to enter the French market, as well as to French enterprises looking to expand abroad. The firm covers every facet of employee mobility and corporate relocations, including the cross-border recruitment of managers and staff, as well as the relocation and expatriation processes, both domestically and globally.

Restructuring plans/business reorganisation : Flichy Grangé Avocats leverages its expertise to handle all issues related to corporate restructurings. The firm offers guidance on redundancy plans, managing interactions with employee representatives, and on collective bargaining agreements. It also represents employers in both collective and individual litigation. In the context of restructurings, the firm conducts due diligence during mergers and acquisitions and assists acquirers in implementing changes post-acquisition, especially concerning compensation packages and HR policies.

Day-to-day HR-related matters : Flichy Grangé Avocats manages every aspect of industrial relations, encompassing the drafting of employment contracts, advising on executive compensation agreements, company policies, employer liabilities, workplace safety, and healthcare issues. The firm also handles the termination of employment and negotiates settlement agreements.

Social security/welfare : The firm advises on all matters pertaining to social security and welfare, such as healthcare and pension plans, employee company savings schemes, and employee benefits. It also supports companies undergoing social security audits.

Employment/labour litigation : The firm manages a comprehensive range of litigation related to employment, encompassing wrongful discharge and claims of employment termination; it defends cases in employment courts and tribunals, addresses work-related accidents and illnesses, and manages collective disputes stemming from restructurings. Additionally, the firm is involved in arbitration and mediation proceedings involving management and employee representatives. It oversees all litigation associated with the principal French public welfare body.

Health and safety : The practice oversees work-related risks to offer clients optimal advice on preventative measures, in collaboration with employee representatives. The firm supports its clients in preparing for and navigating through criminal proceedings, before the investigating judge and in criminal courts, as well as in establishing delegations of authority and responsibilities at the company/establishment level. Additionally, the firm offers training to companies on health and safety matters.

Collective agreements, collective bargaining and working time : Assisting in the negotiation of national collective agreements, or those at various levels within a company or establishment, involves a complex process regulated by specific rules outlined in the French Employment Code.

The wide array of topics mandatorily requiring collective negotiations (including salary discussions, the new negotiations introduced by the employment preservation Act, projections of employment on an annual and multi-annual basis, gender equality in the workplace, employee savings schemes, conditions of working life, collective performance, etc.), the significant "social" challenges they pose, and the intricate manner in which various collective standards interconnect, all justify the establishment of this practice area, managed by partners with extensive experience.

Given that setting working hours, and generally all aspects of work organisation, are frequently based on collective bargaining through branch-level or company-level agreements, this team has naturally acquired specialized expertise in assisting companies to determine the most beneficial arrangements for them, from both economic and operational perspectives, with an emphasis on simplicity and flexibility.

Business ethics, CSR, discrimination, harassment, employees’ right to privacy, data privacy : Companies are increasingly confronted with stringent regulations and enforcement actions related to business ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR), diversity & inclusion, and data privacy, along with heightened expectations from stakeholders (including NGOs, consumers, and candidates). This necessitates heightened vigilance in these domains and the implementation of specific policies and programs.

Our firm specifically aids clients in pinpointing their priorities through due diligence and assessments in anti-corruption (Sapin II), human rights (Vigilance), and data privacy (GDPR), as well as in drafting internal policies (such as Codes of Ethics, anti-corruption Codes of Conduct, Human Rights policies, anti-discrimination/sexual and psychological harassment policies, IT charters, social media policies, conflicts of interest/gifts and entertainment registers, and supplier codes of conduct). The Practice is also skilled in conducting ethics and compliance due diligence during acquisitions and providing advice on corporate reporting obligations. Additional services encompass routine support for Ethics, Compliance, and CSR teams, management and employee training, whistleblowing lines, and internal investigations. Moreover, the Practice assists clients in navigating legal proceedings or regulatory inspections, especially by the Labour Inspectorate, Défenseur des Droits (French Ombudsman), and CNIL (Data Protection Agency).

Training policy and initiatives, work/study contracts, annual review, financing : On a daily basis, we provide advice and representation to employers, training entities and agencies, as well as trade branches. We support businesses in developing their training policies, implementing career evolution interviews, or negotiating collective agreements related to the organization of these interviews and the employer’s contributions to the employee’s personal training account (CPF). Additionally, we assist OPCO training agencies that are undergoing changes to their legal or organizational status.

Public service/state-owned companies : The category of state-owned companies encompasses entities that may adopt a variety of legal forms, including public industrial and commercial enterprises (EPIC), limited companies with partial state ownership, and semi-public companies, among others. The regulations applicable to their employees are even more varied. Depending on the situation, their employees may be classified as civil servants, possess a unique employment status, or be subject, entirely or predominantly, to private employment law and collective bargaining agreements. The State-Owned Companies practice was established to address these complex issues, which frequently require navigating both administrative and private law. This practice is managed by two partners who possess extensive expertise in this area.

Atypical and/or new forms of work : New forms of work have grown over the past fifty years as companies search for the right balance between flexibility and risk management.

The different types of temporary work contracts, including the “long-term temporary contracts”, “Professional Employment Organisations” (PEO) whose legal and collective bargaining framework have recently been defined, and the development of independent workers’ platforms notably illustrate this trend.

Having recourse to these new types of work requires a thorough knowledge of the various types of employment and independent statues available, expertise regarding each scheme’s characteristics and risk profile.

Comprehensive employment legal expertise (covering labour law, criminal law and social security law) is required in order to both advise and litigate these matters, as is regular and practical knowledge of the relevant supervisory authorities (in case of administrative sanctions in the context of secondment, for instance).

This dedicated practice advises companies, groups, temporary work agencies, professional employment organizations, interim management firms, independent worker platforms, employment bodies, and professional unions. It has developed a cutting-edge know-how of all labour and criminal law issues and provides appropriate risk management advice.