Matthew Devey

Matthew has led the German employment practice since 2017. He advises companies, financial institutions and investors on a wide range of strategic German and global employment law issues. He regularly manages and coordinates cross-border employment projects, including M&A-related work, restructurings and distressed M&A, carve-outs, benefits changes, outsourcings, business transfers and pensions work. Further, he has a wealth of experience in the private equity sector and advising US clients about their European employment affairs. He also provides strategic advice to clients about their important personnel issues, including management changes, restrictive covenants, dealing with works councils and unions, hiring and firing and benefits queries.

Matthew has led the German employment practice to be nominated for law firm of the year (JUVE) for the first time in 2020 and was ranked as one of the leading lawyers in Germany for Employment law by WirtschaftsWoche (2020) as well as by Handelsblatt (2020).

Work highlights

Matthew regularly acts as the global or chief German employment law adviser on complex matters, including advising:

• BASF: advising on the sale of the construction chemicals business for over €3bn to the private equity firm Lone Star.
• Covestro: advising on the acquisition of the Resins & Functional Materials business from Royal DSM.
• Jean Goldschmidt International as part of a Belgian-Mexican consortium: advising on the acquisition of the zinc recycling business of the insolvent Harz-Metall GmbH (Recylex Group). 
• LG Electronics: advising on the joint venture with Lufthansa Technik, especially in connection with employment contracts for directors and employees.
• MANN+HUMMEL: advising on the acquisition of helsa Functional Coating.
• McKesson: advising on the joint venture agreement with Walgreens Boots Alliance.
• Montagu Private Equity and its portfolio company Universal-Investment: advising on the acquisition of the Fintech CAPinside GmbH, a B2B online platform for the investment market based on artificial intelligence.
• Zeppelin: advising on the takeover of the distribution of Caterpillar products in Sweden, Denmark and Greenland.

Matthew has been working at Linklaters since 2001 and was appointed partner in 2011.

Matthew studied German and English Law (LL.B.) at the University of Kent in the UK. He also completed a Master of Laws (LL.M.) at the University of Marburg. He is admitted as a British, European and German lawyer. 

He speaks German, English and Swedish.