International secondment termination

[RatherBe]

Just wondered if anyone can help with a question?

My husband works for a UK company and is currently on secondment to the US. The secondment agreement is for a fixed term of 2 years. However, he has been told he has to return 18 months into the contract - which will be very disruptive. The agreement has a clause that sets out what will happen if the secondment is ended early because of his resignation or request, but nothing about what should happen if the company ends it early.

The question is, can the employer impose this? He would not have agreed to the secondment if it was only 18 months from the outset. Everything I have read so far talks about termination having to be agreed - but this has definitely been imposed rather than agreed!

Seems strange that the secondment agreement doesn't have any provision for early return other than at his request, but that doesn't mean they can't do it. You mention 'termination' but it sounds as though his employment isn't being terminated, is it? Sounds like a relocation a few months earlier than planned. Annoying but if there is a business reason why they can't keep him there any longer there's not a lot he can do to force them to do so.

There actually isn't a business reason! He has spoken to the CEO and received a garbled answer which basically boiled down to the CEO hearing gossip about the team being offered jobs by a competitor over here - not true. We will have removal cost paid but will still be out of pocket and it's all based on what the Company admits is 'anecdotal' feedback.

I don't think you can challenge really on legal grounds and it would damage relationship anyway. But you could insist that all extra costs (eg rental on home) be reimbursed.

If it is just because of the rumour mill then I would suggest your DH tries talking to mgmt. If it were me I would suggest that because it would be so inconvenient to move back early for family reasons, I would be happy to sign a guarantee not to secure work with a competitor for a period of, say 12 months. You shouldn't have to do anything like this (ever), but I'd go for a pragmatic solution if I really wanted to avoid being sent back.

I have been in the same position, by the way. I was able to argue that house rental, club fees, loss on car being sold quickly and so on were direct consequence of company action, and it all got reimbursed.

Flowery and StillSquiffy - thanks for your comments.

We will have a lot of costs reimbursed, although not all. It's not so much the money as the disruption and the fact that we would have made a number of decisions differently had the secondment been for such a short period from the outset. The problem with talking to the management is that my husband has heard the reason first hand from the CEO and feels that the HR department will be unwilling to be seen to challenge his decision.