Soo-Ja Schijf

Restructuring & collective redundancy / Employee co-governance / Managing directors / Outsourcing and TUPE projects.

Soo-ja has ample experience in assisting and advising international companies in a wide range of employment and employee participation cases with regard to Dutch and cross-border issues. This includes restructuring, collective redundancies, outsourcing, the consequences of transfer of undertaking, and negotiations with works councils and trade unions. She also advises on appointments and terminations of directors. Soo-ja also gives strategic advice and coordinates complex international projects.

Soo-Ja is an active member of the VVA (Association for Employment Law), the International Bar Association (IBA) and the European Employment Lawyers Association (EELA). She speaks regularly at international conferences and gives trainings in employment law to in-house counsel, HR teams and attorneys, both in the Netherlands and abroad.

Soo-ja heads the international employment and employee participation team.

Chambers Europe 2022 - Employment - Ranked

Up-and-coming partner Soo-ja Schijf has a broad international client base that includes major names from sectors as diverse as financial services and medical technology. Her experience encompasses matters relating to non-compete clauses and instances of sexual harassment.

Strengths

"She is a person who knows how to combine commercial skills with technical skills."

The Legal 500 EMEA 2022 - Employment - Ranked

Kennedy Van der Laan’s employment offering is ‘very professional and down to earth’ and handles a range of contentious and non-contentious matters. Soo-Ja Schijf has a track record of work for international clients concerning collective redundancies and outsourcing; Chris Nekeman is experienced in negotiations with trade unions and is no stranger to litigation; and Ester Damen is recommended for data protection-related employment work.

The Legal 500 EMEA 2021 - Employment - Ranked

Kennedy Van der Laan's labour and employment team advises HR and in-house legal counsel on general advisory matters, litigation and negotiation processes with works councils and trade unions. Chris Nekeman handles employee co-governance and outsourcing matters. He co-heads the team with Soo-Ja Schijf, who handles cross-border issues such as restructuring and collective redundancy projects, TUPE projects and board member appointments and terminations.

The Legal 500 EMEA 2020 - Employment - Ranked

Kennedy Van der Laan's three-partner employment team provides the full range of employment law services for both national and international clients. Chris Nekeman focuses primarily on employee co-governance, union negotiations, and outsourcing mandates for Dutch companies. Eva Knipschild is high recommended for work involving flexible employment, and Soo-Ja Schijf is a key contact for international clients seeking advice on cross-border matters involving restructuring and TUPE. Employment-focused data protection specialist Ester Damen was appointed as an associate-partner of the firm in July 2019.

The Legal 500 EMEA 2019 - Europe Employment

Kennedy Van der Laan is highly rated for the range of HR-related advice it can offer in addition to the handling of contentious cases, especially in the finance and tech sectors. Eva Knipschild, Chris Nekeman and Soo-Ja Schijf are the senior partners who oversee work for clients such as Unisys, VodafoneZiggo and Rabobank. It advises Microsoft on all its employment matters including co-governance issues relating to restructures and reorganisations.

Brian Newman, LiveNation Entertainment 2018 - Employment & Labour Law

"Soo-Ja Schijf has successfully advised us on employment matters within our international business. She is extremely responsive in terms of timing and understands the international context of our entertainment business with different issues and challenges. I value her strong international focus and her pragmatic and very solution-focused approach. With Soo-Ja we are on the right track."

• Advises a private equity firm and international provider of commercial real estate services in the field of employment law, including restructurings, dismissal cases and privacy issues;
• Represents a listed technology company about a striking example of non-compliance and integrity, in which a director and several employees were dismissed;
• Advises an international software company about a corporate transaction, the harmonization process of employment conditions after acquisition, and negotiations with the Works Council;
• Represents a listed Dutch bank in a large-scale international outsourcing agreement with a worldwide provider of IT consultancy services provider, including strategy planning, negotiations and advice about the labour-law consequences in Europe, Asia, the Pacific and the USA.