Biography
Kenneth Chua is a partner and the head of Quisumbing Torres' Employment Practice Group. He is also a member of the Financial Institutions and Technology, Media & Telecommunications Industry Groups. He participates in initiatives of Baker & McKenzie International of which Quisumbing Torres is a member firm. He is a member of Baker McKenzie’s Asia Pacific Employment & Compensation Steering Committee. He has 23 years of experience advising clients on various labor and employment issues, including compensation and benefits, employment contract and employee handbook.
Kenneth serves as the legal counsel (representing Quisumbing Torres) for the Global In-House Center Council Philippines (GICC). He sits in the Tripartite Executive Committee and the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council of the Department of Labor and Employment as representative of the employer sector. He is consistently recognized as a Leading Lawyer in Employment by the Chambers Asia Pacific, Benchmark Litigation and asialaw profiles. He is ranked Hall of Fame in Employment by the Legal 500 Asia Pacific. He is also among Asia Business Law Journal’s inaugural “A-List” of the Top 100 lawyers in the Philippines.
Practice Focus
Kenneth’s practice focuses on general employment advice, compensation and benefits, pension funds, global equity services, and executive compensation and movement. He has represented multinational corporations in labor and employment matters.
Representative Legal Matters
- Assist an American publicly traded global technology company that focuses on business-to business and information technology capabilities for enterprises in structuring an approach that allowed client to lawfully replace the senior leaders of the Philippine subsidiary of the US company that client purchased.
- Assist a multinational corporation that provides insurance, reinsurance, employment benefits advice and brokerage services, in connection with the exit of its second most senior employee in the Philippines by reason of redundancy.
- Successfully handle and complete the transfer of employees for a global leader in the design and manufacture of power conversion and embedded computing solutions in respect of the Philippine aspects of the separation of its three business lines, preparatory to the disposal of one line to a third party purchaser. In the absence of Philippine business transfer laws, structure an employee transfer method for 3,000-3,500 employees that was acceptable to the client, the buyer and the relevant Philippine employees of the client.
- Represent a longstanding diversified health care company and lead a multi-jurisdiction work covering 10 jurisdictions and 10 other law firms in Asia in relation to updating the non-competition and non-solicitation agreements of client's senior offices in the Asia Pacific region.
- Advise a leading provider of project management software on the internal sexual harassment complaint filed by a junior employee against a senior officer.
- Advise a leading manufacturer of medical equipment and supplies on employment laws for the Philippine aspect of its headcount reduction exercise in Asia.
- Successfully obtained for an American stock exchange a favorable judgment at the regional arbitration and appellate division levels of the National Labor Relations Commission in relation to a suit filed by employees who sought separation pay when they were transferred to a buyer's Philippine affiliate in connection with client's sale of certain businesses to a global leader in technology-enabled services (buyer) on a global basis.
- Successfully defended a multinational tire manufacturing company against its former employees that sued the client to ask the court to declare invalid the post-employment non-compete agreements that they signed.
- Successfully represented a research company before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in an investigation of a fire in the building where the offices of the client were located that resulted in casualties. There were no significant adverse finding against the client.
Professional Honors
Hall of Fame for Labor and Employment, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, 2021 to 2024
Band 1, Leading Lawyer for Employment, Chambers Asia Pacific, 2016 to 2024
Litigation Star for Labor and Employment, Benchmark Litigation, 2019 to 2023
Distinguished Practitioner for Labor and Employment, asialaw Leading Lawyers, 2020 to 2023
A-List Lawyer, The Philippines' Top 100 Lawyers, Asia Business Law Journal, 2018 to 2023
Leading Individual for Labor and Employment, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific, 2014 to 2020
Professional Associations and Memberships
Integrated Bar of the Philippines
International Bar Association
Philippine Department (Ministry) of Labor and Employment - Member of Tripartite Executive Committee and of National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council
Employers Confederation of the Philippines - Member, Technical Working Group on Labor and Social Policy Issues
Global In-House Center Council Philippines - Firm representative
Admissions
Philippines (1999)
Education
Ateneo de Manila University (JD cum laude, salutatorian) (1998)
Ateneo de Manila University (BS Honors) (1989)
Languages
English
Filipino
Fookien
Mandarin