Secondment Agreements: Drafting and Negotiating Expatriate/International Secondment Agreements

Summary

This practice note addresses drafting and negotiating international secondment agreements. A secondment is, in essence, an “employee loan.” In an international secondment, the home country employer temporarily “lends” its employee (secondee) to a host country company (typically affiliated with the employer). There are two general types of secondment agreements that memorialize the secondee’s international assignment: (1) the Inter-company Secondment Agreement, entered into by the home country employer and the host country company (the secondee is not a party to this agreement); and (2) the Expatriate Secondment Agreement, which outlines the duties and responsibilities between the home country employer and the secondee. Employers often have separate secondment agreements for employees working abroad due to complicated tax, compensation, data protection, immigration, and benefits issues.