Anita joined JMW in 2019 and heads up the Employment Team in the London Office.
Anita has been described in the Legal 500 as “very professional and has good insight into the processes of the law”. Chambers and Partners have noted Anita as an “excellent litigator” and she has been specifically praised for her “effective, lightning-fast responses and total dedication”.
Anita advises across the entire spectrum of employment issues to businesses, ranging from thriving start-ups to professional services firms to global PLCs, as well as to senior executives and founders. This gives Anita a unique, and well-honed insight into both sides’ perspectives enabling her to quickly devise powerful tactical strategies to achieve her clients goals.
Anita is a trusted adviser to clients in most sectors including Finance, Media, Digital & Technology, Retail, Pharmaceutical and Construction. Well accustomed to dealing with complex board room issues and tricky, often high profile exits, Anita is renowned for her intuitive, commercial no-nonsense approach. She is frequently described by clients as being a formidable negotiator who skilfully and charmingly manages to achieve their end game. She naturally and swiftly builds trusted relationships with clients, many of whom tell her that is she is in their top ten speed dial numbers!
Anita’s experience includes:
- Acting for a global pharmaceutical company (including its European offices) on its high level HR issues including site closures, restructures, regulatory breaches, employee and director under-performance, disciplinary processes including gross misconduct, grievances and data subject access requests, short-term and persistent absenteeism concerns and discrimination claims.
- Acting for a multi-billion dollar hedge fund on its complex HR issues including expulsion of partners, disciplinary processes, tricky ill-health dismissals, whistleblowing claims and remuneration disputes.
- Acting for companies within the Construction sector on a variety of employment related issues including TUPE and outsourcing, harmonising contracts, reorganisations and redundancies, board level disputes, fallouts between founders, investors and shareholders and breach of director duties.
- Representing a number of senior executives against a large retail group and its high profile owner in respect of their sexual harassment, sex and race discrimination and whistleblowing claims. This involved advising clients how to protect their reputation and also manage constant press attention and pressure to share their story to the Telegraph and other newspapers.
- Representing teams looking to move to direct competitors. This involves devising a careful exit strategy and timeline, working around complex post-termination restrictions and creating a clever communication plan. Anita has also acted on the other side for companies who are looking to injunct groups of employees who have sought to move as a team. Anita has extensive injunction experience.
- Representing a number of senior executives and C-level compliance officers in their whistleblowing concerns within private equity firms and financial institutions.