Using UK Employment Contracts For Overseas Employees

If an employee of a UK company is to be based wholly overseas (i.e. outside the UK) it may be unwise to make the employment contract subject to UK law and the UK courts.

The better choice may be to make the contract subject to the law of the place of performance of the contract.

In a recent UK case, a UK national who had lived in Lebanon for some time, began working for a UK company. His job was to establish the UK company's operations in Saudi Arabia. He commuted from Lebanon to Saudi and he was based at the offices of his employer's local partner. His place of work was therefore Saudi, although he did travel to the UK on business very occasionally.

The UK employer had issued the employee with its standard UK employment contract, governed by UK law and subject to UK courts, because this was administratively simpler than putting together a new Saudi contract.