International assignment guidelines & employment contracts
International assignment guidelines & employment contracts
Our expertise includes international assignment guidelines and international assignment contracts. We are highly familiar with the Swiss market with regard to competitive international assignment guidelines and are able to come up with tailored, attractive, and cost-conscious international assignment policies for your company as well.
Thanks to our long-standing and highly extensive industry expertise, we can compile the above for you individually and in a manner tailored to your company’s industry, as well as “benchmark” your company against leading companies from your field.
We regularly work with our clients to compile new international assignment regulations and/or revise existing ones. When doing so, it is understood that existing guidelines, regulations, and contracts are adapted in a company-specific manner, and that the needs of your company are taken into account.
We would also be glad to examine only individual contractual components of existing contract templates, or guide you through the process of contract design and agreeing on the individual regulations (international assignments policy, local employment contract, international assignment contract, additional agreements, foreign and Swiss labor law).
Contact us with your questions on international assignment guidelines and contracts. We will work with you to find an optimal solution.
Cost sharing agreements & transfer prices
In the case of international assignments for employees, the accompanying costs also need to be taken into account, and in many cases offset against the company of deployment. In order to be able to offset the costs in a manner usual for the external company, the first step involves clarifying the interest in the international assignment (specialist, trainee, job rotation etc.), and then deciding which unit will bear which cost component. Depending on the specific case, this may vary between 0% and 100%.
Companies should be aware that medium-sized companies are increasingly becoming the focus of company audits, as the fiscal authorities now possess the necessary resources and auditors are now increasingly retained to transfer pricing aspects.
The risk of transfer pricing often needs to be clarified with domestic and foreign tax authorities and the country-specific requirements taken into account. Due to the rapid developments in the field of transfer pricing, this requires the specific expertise of the tax experts involved.
Furthermore, all cross-border aspects also need to be represented in the transfer pricing documentation. Our transfer pricing specialists would be glad to assist you in this area with their interdisciplinary know-how.
Our key consulting services:
- Creating and revising international assignment guidelines and policies
- Reviewing templates for international assignment contracts or creating them while taking into account existing policies
- Providing, reviewing, and/or adapting local employment contracts
- Drafting suspension agreements in compliance with the selected contractual construct
- Working out special contractual clauses for taxes, social security, and labor law aspects
- Dissolution agreements and terminations in the case of overseas employment
- Cost transfer agreements and cost sharing agreements incl. breakdown of costs and statement of costs for further cost processing
- Advice on appropriate transfer pricing and compiling of internal transfer pricing guidelines
- Analysis and adaptation of existing systems for avoiding double taxation
Review of an international assignment contract
An employee with the position of CEO has been posted from Germany to Saudi Arabia.
We reviewed the international assignment contract with our partners in Germany and Saudi Arabia, in particular with regard to the topics of severance and termination.
BEST PRACTICES - A small selection of cases from our day-to-day work:
- Benchmarking of European posting guidelines and creation of a custom policy for a Swiss company that is active across Europe
- Employment contract for an employee of a Swiss company working in India that takes into consideration Indian labor laws
- Review of international assignment contracts from Japan
- Drafting of dissolution agreements for internationally active CEOs and employees for contract termination during an international assignment
- Drafting of sample contracts for the passing on of costs for trainees from Switzerland on international assignments in the USA
- Drafting a cost sharing agreement for the assignment of the CFO of a German company as an interim CFO in Switzerland
- Pro rata passing on of costs for employees who are simultaneously working for multiple associated companies
