Corporate Immigration 2020 Seventh Edition Featuring contributions from: A. KARITZIS & ASSOCIATES L.L.C Advokatfirman Vinge ALRUD Law Firm AOV Abogados BARTLAW LLP | Canadian Immigration BDO Migration Services Bojorge & Associates Breakthrough Attorneys De La Vega & Martínez Rojas, S.C. De Luca & Partners Everaert Advocaten Immigration Lawyers Fakhoury Global Immigration Famsville Solicitors Globetrotters Legal Africa Green and Spiegel LLC Immigration Solutions Lawyers J Fetting Inc. Kingsley Napley LLP Law firm Šafar & Partners, Ltd M-HQ Ltd (Dubai Branch) Magrath Sheldrick LLP michels.pmks Rechtsanwälte Partnerschaft mbB Nakai Immigration Services LPC Oberhammer Rechtsanwälte GmbH Petrel & Associés PKF Legal (Shanghai Demei Law Firm) Raczkowski Rahmat Lim & Partners REAL Avocats à la Cour SANDIVA Legal Network SRS Advogados Tannus & Asociados VISCHER AG Youssry Saleh & Partners A practical cross-border insight to corporate immigration lawTable of Contents 14 Global Overview on Modern Slavery and Corporate Supply Chain Compliance Anne O’Donoghue, Taraneh Arianfar & Jenny Nguyen, Immigration Solutions Lawyers PERM Law in Viral America Joel Stewart, Fakhoury Global Immigration Australia BDO Migration Services: Maria Debra Jockel & Rebecca Thomson Expert Chapters 1 COVID-19 and the Global Immigration Shutdown: Why it is Time to Reimagine the Visa Application Process Nicolas Rollason, Kingsley Napley LLP 4 31 19 Austria Oberhammer Rechtsanwälte GmbH: Ewald Oberhammer & Valentina Arnez 40 Canada BARTLAW LLP | Canadian Immigration: Jacqueline R. Bart & Carrie A. Wright 50 China PKF Legal (Shanghai Demei Law Firm): Qin Chen & Matteo Cicero 57 Colombia Tannus & Asociados: Rodrigo Tannus Serrano 63 Cyprus A. KARITZIS & ASSOCIATES L.L.C: Elena Karitzis & Marios Christodoulou 71 86 Germany michels.pmks Rechtsanwälte Partnerschaft mbB: Dr. Gunther Mävers 78 France Petrel & Associés: Pascal Petrel 100 Ghana Globetrotters Legal Africa: Paa Kwesi Hagan & Irene Ntarmah-Wilson 108 Indonesia SANDIVA Legal Network: Arthur Wailan Sanger, S.H., Romy Jiwaperwira, S.H. & Raiyan Maulana, S.H. 114 Italy De Luca & Partners: Vittorio De Luca 124 Japan Nakai Immigration Services LPC: Masahito Nakai 131 Luxembourg REAL Avocats à la Cour: Maria Ana Real Geraldo Dias 138 Malaysia Rahmat Lim & Partners: Jack Yow 145 Mexico De La Vega & Martínez Rojas, S.C.: Edgar Mayorga Compean 153 Netherlands Everaert Advocaten Immigration Lawyers: Marcel A.G. Reurs 162 Nigeria Famsville Solicitors: Dayo Adu & Blessing Oluwapamilerin Adepoju 168 Peru AOV Abogados: Ariel Orrego-Villacorta Icochea 177 Poland Raczkowski: Michał Kacprzyk 184 Portugal SRS Advogados: Raquel Cuba Martins 190 Russia ALRUD Law Firm: Irina Anyukhina & Margarita Egiazarova 197 Singapore Magrath Sheldrick LLP: Ben Sheldrick 205 Slovenia Law firm Šafar & Partners, Ltd: Martin Šafar & Polona Boršnak 212 South Africa J Fetting Inc.: Jonty Fetting 222 Spain Bojorge & Associates: Marla Vanessa Bojorge Zúñiga 228 Sweden Advokatfirman Vinge: Jonas Lindblad & Anna Backman 235 Switzerland VISCHER AG: Urs Haegi & Beatrice Leistner 242 Tanzania Breakthrough Attorneys: Asha Hamisi Mgembe & Morren Ndunguru 248 255 United Kingdom Kingsley Napley LLP: Nicolas Rollason & Felicity Woof 267 USA Green and Spiegel LLC: Dana K. Imperia & Ashley P. Hogan Q&A Chapters United Arab Emirates M-HQ Ltd (Dubai Branch): Yann Mrazek & Kath Zagatti Egypt Youssry Saleh & Partners: Ingi Scandar & Mira AdlyCorporate Immigration 2020 Chapter 11 COVID-19 and the Global Immigration Shutdown: Why it is Time to Reimagine the Visa Application Process Kingsley Napley LLPNicolas Rollason © Published and reproduced with kind permission by Global Legal Group Ltd, London shutdown in the global visa infrastructure now means that this is simply not an option. While dealing with the immediate immi- gration consequences of the lockdown has been the first problem to be addressed by immigration policymakers, reopening the visa system is now top of the list. But Governments should also be taking this opportunity to think about how the visa system can be future-proofed against another pandemic or other global disaster. The current crisis has exposed the fact that the existing visa operations of most countries are built around a “bricks and mortar” infrastructure, which requires applicants to travel into large cities to file their applications, attend visa interviews in person and/or to provide their biometrics (fingerprints and facial photographs). In many countries, migrants also have to register with the police on arrival. There are many policy reasons why physical attendance is often required – much of US immigration policy since 9/11 has been driven by national secu- rity and has seen all visa applicants interviewed in person in US Government operated Embassies and Consulates. The UK has been collecting biometric data on visa applicants since 2007 and outsourced the operation of all global visa appli- cation centres (VACS) to commercial partners, including VFS Global (starting in 2003) and TLS Contact (from April 2014) for applications made outside the UK and to Sopra Steria for all in-country applications (since 2018). These commercial arrange- ments involve the provision of physical locations for biometrics to be taken and for key original documents to be provided (and more recently scanned). The commercial partners also provide a range of additional services including (amongst many others) priority services, premium lounges, courier deliveries, pass- port return services and more recently mobile biometric enrol- ment facilities. While 2019 saw a significant change to UK visa processing in that supporting application documents can now be scanned into the online system by applicants, the latter (other than a small number of wealthy applicants who can afford to use the expensive and very limited capacity for mobile enrolment at their homes) must still attend a physical location to provide biometrics. Leaving the Bricks and Mortar Infrastructure Behind? Is there an alternative to the bricks and mortar approach to visa applications? A solution could well be found in the UK’s EU Exit app, designed to assist the UK Government in processing around 3.5 million applications from EU nationals living in the UK as part of the post-Brexit transition away from EU free movement. The app was launched in January 2019 as a pilot and fully launched from 29 March 2019, the day on which the UK was originally due to leave the EU. Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has brought global mobility to a grinding halt. Around the world, travel restrictions, border closures, post-arrival quarantines for passengers, limitations on in-country movement and ongoing social distancing meas- ures have restricted most forms of travel across international borders. International assignments, business travel and short- term cross-border service provisions have all but disappeared, as businesses and their employees follow the lockdown and work from home edicts issued around the world. Rethinking Mobility? As Governments start to ease lockdown measures, as their coun- tries go past the peak of infection, employers are now turning their minds as to how they will return to business as usual in the post-pandemic world of global mobility. The crisis is causing a fundamental rethink in the way in which global mobility oper- ates, as business models which involve mobility at their core are being stress-tested to the extreme. The first question to ask is whether these models and the policies which implement them can continue, or whether they need to be reshaped to the post-pandemic world. Businesses are shifting to focus on roles rather than locations and reviewing to what extent “portable” careers can continue without resi- dence and work in the same location. As work from home has become the new normal, businesses can see that the produc- tivity of mobile staff may not be very badly affected once people and systems are operating efficiently in their homes, and how much can be achieved (and enjoyed) through video calls. With this in mind, the need for global mobility (or even local mobility) looks more and more outdated. Combined with the personal health and safety concerns of employees in the medium term (until at least Q1 of 2021 on current projections for a vaccine) and longer term environmental concerns about travel, it does not look as though global mobility will be making a comeback in its current form anytime soon. Many are also predicting that the inevitable economic downturn may well see knee-jerk protec- tionist immigration measures which may restrict the availability of work visas in certain jurisdictions. Rethinking and Future-Proofing the Visa Application System While the crisis gives businesses a unique opportunity to review their mobility policies and distributed workforce models, it has also exposed fundamental weaknesses in the global visa system that is supposed to facilitate (but often blocks) global mobility. Even if people want to travel and relocate for work, the total 2COVID-19 and the Global Immigration Shutdown Corporate Immigration 2020 © Published and reproduced with kind permission by Global Legal Group Ltd, London The Future Reimagined? Policymakers tend to be cautious when looking at how innova- tion can improve immigration systems. National security issues tend to trump progress in many cases and the rise of “work from anywhere” may have made the need for physical reloca- tion across borders less pressing. Countries such as the UK may be moving in a different direction to major immigration desti- nations such as the US in referring to the immigration applica- tion process as the “customer journey”. Notwithstanding all of these issues, immigration policymakers who want to keep the wheels turning during global crises must think of better ways for individuals to apply for their visas. While it may not yet tick all of the security boxes, the EU Exit app provides a possible starting point for the design of a future UK visa application process that bypasses what visa applicants around the world take for granted – travel, queuing, waiting, cost and inconven- ience. Moving applications away from visa application centres may future-proof the system against similar crises and enable global mobility to resume much more quickly. The app makes applying very easy – it reads the biometric chip in an individual’s passport (using Near Field Communication functionality found in most smartphones) and then validates and authenticates the chip biometrics against a facial verifica- tion of the applicant looking into the phone. Applicants (or customers as they are now referred to) using the app can apply for UK immigration from the comfort of their home or on the move without having to attend an appointment. They can also upload evidence of residence through the app and do not need to present their passport to an immigration official or commer- cial partner. It is exactly this self-service convenience which has enabled more than 3 million EU nationals to be granted status via the app so far. Clearly, EU nationals already in the UK present a low immi- gration risk. There may be reluctance to deploy similar mobile solutions to first time visa applicants whom the UK authori- ties do not already know. At present, the EU Exit app does not take fingerprints, which are typically part of most visa- related identity verification, where checks can be run against existing national and international immigration and criminal databases, before visas are then issued. Technology currently exists for fingerprints to be taken using smartphones, and if the current features of the EU Exit app were combined with this technology, then this could provide a secure mobile solution to bypass the bricks and mortar routes.3Kingsley Napley LLP Corporate Immigration 2020 Nicolas Rollason is a partner and head of Kingsley Napley’s immigration practice. He advises on all areas of UK immigration and nationality law, and has particular expertise in providing strategic advice to businesses on their global immigration needs. Nicolas has extensive expertise across all immigration routes, with a widely recognised breadth of knowledge enabling him and his team to offer clear solutions to complex immigration problems. He is a well-known expert in EU immigration law and has litigated key test cases before the European Court of Justice. He is regularly consulted by the UK immigration authorities on proposed changes to UK immigration rules and policy. He is a regular conference speaker and has written chapters on immigration in numerous publications. He is a long-standing member of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association and the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, and a founding member of the European Immigration Lawyers’ Network. Nicolas is listed as a leading figure in the Who’s Who of Corporate Immigration Law, Chambers UK and The Legal 500 UK. Kingsley Napley LLP Knights Quarter 14 St John’s Lane London EC1M 4AJ United Kingdom Tel: +44 20 7814 1200 Email: nrollason@kingsleynapley.co.uk URL: www.kingsleynapley.co.uk Kingsley Napley’s immigration team is recognised as one of the best in the UK with over 15 years in the top tier of Chambers UK and The Legal 500. The team has an established reputation for providing clear strategic immigra- tion advice tailored to each situation and client. The business immigration team supports global clients in all their immigration needs, ranging from companies setting up in the UK to multinationals transferring high volumes of staff into the UK and across the world. The team’s excellent relation- ships with the UK immigration authorities and its high-level policy work, as well as its focus on client care, enable it to deliver a service underpinned by excellence, integrity and providing added value. www.kingsleynapley.co.uk © Published and reproduced with kind permission by Global Legal Group Ltd, LondonCurrent titles in the ICLG series Alternative Investment Funds Anti-Money Laundering Aviation Finance & Leasing Aviation Law Business Crime Cartels & Leniency Class & Group Actions Competition Litigation Construction & Engineering Law Consumer Protection Copyright Corporate Governance Corporate Immigration Corporate Investigations Corporate Tax Cybersecurity Data Protection Derivatives Designs Digital Business Digital Health Drug & Medical Device Litigation Employment & Labour Law Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Environment & Climate Change Law Family Law Fintech Foreign Direct Investment Regimes Franchise Gambling Insurance & Reinsurance International Arbitration Investor-State Arbitration Lending & Secured Finance Litigation & Dispute Resolution Merger Control Mergers & Acquisitions Mining Law Oil & Gas Regulation Outsourcing Patents Pharmaceutical Advertising Private Client Private Equity Product Liability Project Finance Public Investment Funds Public Procurement Real Estate Renewable Energy Restructuring & Insolvency Sanctions Securitisation Shipping Law Telecoms, Media & Internet Trade Marks Vertical Agreements and Dominant Firms The International Comparative Legal Guides are published by: @ICLG_GLGNext >