Risk advisory
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP maintains a strong position in the market for employment matters with high commercial or reputational risk, particularly for multinational businesses and financial institutions. Andrew Taggart is well known for his work in high-profile and high-value litigation, including discrimination, whistleblowing, and breach of contract claims. Christine Young is sought out by clients for her expertise in the financial services and energy sectors, and her Employment Tribunal and High Court work. Tim Leaver frequently assists in the employment and social aspects of ESG reporting, while Nick Wright has broad experience extending to sensitive regulatory investigations. The team benefits from the experience of Peter Frost, who is highly regarded for his work in employment disputes. Other names to note include Siân McKinley and Jennifer Andrews.
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Profile
Work Department
Employment, Pensions and Incentives
Position
Partner, London
Career
Christine is a Partner in the firm’s London Employment team, advising on employment law across contentious, transactional, and advisory matters both domestically and in a cross-border context. She has a full-service advisory practice, including guidance on investigations, executive hires and departures, team moves, misuse of confidential information, enforcement of restrictive covenants, conduct and capability issues, as well as drafting bonus arrangements, including within the financial services sector. Christine advises on board-level employment issues and works closely with the firm’s regulatory team on employment aspects of contentious departures.
Christine has handled claims in the Employment Tribunal and High Court, including high-value whistleblowing and discrimination claims and seeking injunctive relief. A significant part of her practice involves advising on high-profile, sensitive matters for clients, particularly investigations related to #metoo issues, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and whistleblowing cases.
On transactional matters, Christine has extensive experience advising on employment aspects of M&A, takeovers, and outsourcings, including transactions in an insolvency context. This includes advising on cross-border transactions and the application of TUPE.
Christine also advises on employment-related data protection and data subject rights, including managing DSARs and interactions with the ICO.
Christine studied at St Andrews University and graduated in 2001 with a 2:1 (hons) MA in Psychology and then undertook the PgDL and LPC and after her training contract qualified as a lawyer in 2005.
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Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘The team are superb. The attention to detail, the client focus and the robust and rigorous approach to cases is a joy.’
‘Peter Frost is thoughtful, engaged and a really deep thinker. Josh Peters has great attention to detail, always ready to respond and address points.’
‘One of the best in the business when it comes to employment litigation for employers. When the issues really matter, they are the go-to firm.’
‘Tim Leaver is a seasoned and exceptionally effective employment litigator. Nick Wright is a very skilled employment lawyer, and Peter Frost is a legend of employment law litigation.’
‘The HSF Employment team is a go-to for the more complex and challenging employment matters - those involving regulatory or senior management angles. The team is broad and diverse, and is second to none when it comes to strategic guidance. In a recent case, we employed a mixture of AI and predictive analytics to determine potential case outcome probabilities in order to shape that into metrics that can be presented to the CFO and also help facilitate settlement range discussion. It was interesting to see the innovative mix of mathematics with law!’
‘Andrew Taggart quickly understands the big picture and is able to provide strategic, tailored advice. He has fantastic experience and an enormous network, which really helps shape an assessment of case merit.’
Key clients
- The Church of England
- Chevron
- National Grid
- AlTi Tiedemann Global
- Cheniere
- The Ardonagh Group
- Inchcape plc
- Pensions Insurance Corporation
- Pilkington
- Royal London
Work highlights
Acting for the Church of England in its status as "intervenor" in the appeal brought by Kristin Higgs against Farmor's School, which was heard at the EAT, and more recently at the Court of Appeal in October 2024.
Advising National Grid Plc on the employment aspects of the £630m sale of its electricity system operator to the UK Government.
Advising Chevron on the employment aspects of establishing a new global capability centre in India, providing strategic advice on the employment law considerations and legal requirements of establishing a new engineering and innovation centre in India.