In March 2015 Vonovia SE, a German DAX 30 company formerly operating as Deutsche Annington Immobilien SE, took a controlling majority of GAGFAH S.A., the parent company of the GAGFAH Group.

In recent months, Watson Farley & Williams (”WFW“) has comprehensively advised Vonovia SE on all employment law aspects of the integration of the Deutsche Annington and GAGFAH subgroups into the new Vonovia group.

Complex, thorough and successful negotiations regarding works agreements, reconciliation of interests and social plans with the group-, general-, and local works councils of the Deutsche Annington subgroup as well as the GAGFAH subgroup, ensured complete integration on an operational level. These negotiations were successfully concluded in November and guarantee that the operational implementation of the integration and the successful cooperation of the employees of all companies of the Vonovia group will occur on the basis of uniform processes. Besides that, the synergy effects led to a staff reduction, to be realized through voluntary termination.

The WFW employment team that advised on the matter included Dr. Nikolaus Krienke (partner, Hamburg and Munich), Anne Kleffmann (partner, Munich), Dr. Frank Peter Reissinger (Senior Consultant, Munich), and Dr. Frederik Martell, Dr. Andreas Wiegreffe, Dr. Feyzan Ünsal,  Dr. Johannes Alexander Höft, Dr. Vinzent Bargon (all associates, Hamburg).

Lead partner Dr. Nikolaus Krienke says: “We are proud that following the successful merger of Deutsche Annington Immobilien SE with the Vitus- Group a year ago, we are again advising the group on another ambitious employment law project.“