Advising international engineering company on intra-company transfers

We were approached by a large, international, foreign-based engineering company which was not happy with the advice it had received from two other immigration service providers in relation to whether its corporate group structure permitted intra-company transfers to its operations in the UK.

It had been advised that the corporate relationship between the overseas company and the UK company did not qualify as an intra-company transfer as defined in the sponsor policy guidance.

The two other advisers had come up with complicated and artificial suggestions in order to try and meet the requirements of the ICT rule.

It became apparent to us very quickly that the corporate relationship fell squarely within the terms of one of the definitions of common ownership or control. As a result, we were able to issue a legal opinion which enabled the UK entity to issue the required Certificates of Sponsorship for tier 2 (intra-company transfers).

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