The IEM Consultancy is a bespoke business established to advise and support UK businesses trading with the EU. Our consultants have extensive legal and practical experience advising UK and EU based businesses facing post-Brexit trade barriers and have worked both in the UK and the EU. The consultancy was conceived before the UK left the EU and drew upon the experience of its founders who had worked in the UK and the EU and had an established reputation for advising upon trade issues within the EU’s single market. The consultants who hold professional qualifications have a long track record of advising large and small businesses based in the UK and the EU and offer a tailored made approach, recognising that no two businesses are the same and aim to put UK businesses in a position where they can quickly become self-sufficient.
The consultancy’s approach is practical and tailored to each business as each company faces different challenges. Its services cover – Immigration and mobility advice. We assist employers who need their employees to work in the EU for short or longer periods. We advise upon visa and work permit requirements, tax and social security implications of working in the EU and compliance with the procedural requirements individual to each EU member state.
Employment and employment law compliance. We can provide bespoke and boilerplate employment contracts that comply with the requirements of each EU member state. We supplement this with advice on local employment law requirements on pay, working time and social security obligations.
Commercial, contracts and company advice. Our consultants offer practical advice on company formation in the EU, the creation or variation of contracts and commercial advice when providing service in the EU or selling goods. We can provide bespoke commercial agreements for both simple and complex transactions and advice on the trade and tax considerations involved.
The consultancy can support UK businesses at any stage, in particular businesses that are at an early stage, with little knowledge of the challenges involved when trading in goods and services in the EU. Our consultants’ near unique offering provides a blend of advice based on their knowledge of the UK’s trade and legal landscape with their experience of having lived, worked and advised EU businesses. The aim of the consultancy is to place a business in a position where they can absorb any required compliance steps within their business with a minimum of change and to mimimise the need for any ongoing professional support.
5 Top tips for successful trade
Plan ahead early. UK businesses trading in the EU and providing services should plan ahead, before they make any legal commitments. Planning ahead allows businesses to understand any delays that they may face before their employees travel and any additional costs that they will face. In addition, the trading model that the UK company is using may not be realistic depending on the commercial transaction.
Know the member state where you intend to do business. The UK/EU Trade Agreement is a framework for trade in goods and services. It’s more detailed on goods, but much less on services. Each member state of the EU has a wide discretion in deciding what parts of the agreement it adopts, and the default position is that the national rules of each member state that will apply. There is no pan-EU set of rules that apply. You will need to navigate the member state rules for each EU country. If you are trading with France, Germany and Italy, you’ll need to know and comply with three sets of rules, not one.
Know the costs and delays involved at the start. Generally, the fees to apply for visas and work permits from each individual member state of the EU are much lower than those in the UK. However, the processing time for each member state vary and can be much longer than similar processing times in the UK. Generally, if you need a visa or a work permit, you should allow three months to obtain all the documents needed to send a UK worker to the EU. The total costs involved will not only be the application fees. There will be the time needed for the workers to apply for the visa/work permit. Depending on where you are located in the UK, and the availability of appointments, your UK workers may need to travel some distance and may need a day, or days, to complete the process, during which time they will not have access to their passport and be unable to travel.
Understand your sector and how the member state treats it. Member state rules are generally divided by sector and region. This means that different rules apply to those in the manufacturing sector versus those in the financial sector for example. It also means that different rules will apply within a sector, depending on which region within the member state they are carrying out their service (E.g Berlin vs Cologne). Each member state will have its own minimum wage law which UK employees must comply with when in the country and also its own working time. For example, different member states have a different maximum working time a day. Member states sometimes require that the qualifications of UK workers are recognised before they can perform a related service in their country or as a prerequisite to obtaining a work permit or visa. Qualification recognition is more prevalent in technical, engineering and electrical sectors as well as the regulated sectors such as law, medicine and veterinary.