Lammy74

Hi All,

I have just found out that the holding company in the UK of the US entity I work for, on an E2 Visa, is going to be sold lock stock and barrel to a US Investment company.

Reading up on what I can online: it would seem that my E2 Visa would no longer be valid.

Can anyone confirm or deny this fact and let me know what I can do to protect my position here? My green card application has started but I understand this may be reset too as technically it's a different company sponsoring me.

Many thanks for your time and sharing similar experiences in advance.

S Folinsky

Consult with competent employment based immigration counsel. All deliberate speed is in order.

Pulaski

Per S Folinsky above, the answers to your questions will be critically dependent on the precise details of your circumstances, how the deal to acquire your employer is structured, and what your employer wants, which might be different from what you want. Even in the "best case" scenario you might find that your right to work is suspended for a period of time, so you could find yourself without income.

I would add to S Folinsky's post, that you should consult an immigration lawyer at your own expense, not rely on advice from your employer and/or your employer's (immigration) lawyer, because they are not necessarily working in your best interests.

LegalEagleTX

Prima facile that would be the effect. Just be aware that you may have reporting obligations to USCIS if there is a change of ownership in your sponsoring company. I can’t recall if this is the company’s obligations or yours.

Actually I might be thinking of E1 here.

tom169

When in doubt

shiversaint

Agree a lawyer is what you need here as there may well be aspects to this deal that change things, and you'd also hope your employer has thought about this...but yeah the E-2 employer needs to be majority owned by a citizen from the originating nation. We looked into changing our ownership over to a USC to help our business finance options but the E-2 requirements put a stop to that.

S Folinsky

A slight bit to note: 50% does the trick. There may be other permutations that might work. Back in the day when majority was the rule, a 50/50 joint venture between Toyota and GM qualified by Toyota's purchase of a 100 shares of GM common stock.

Pulaski

I suspect that there may be a difference between 50% by value of the investment and 50% of voting rights.

Usually companies are set up with voting rights/ control being directly proportional to capital invested, but that does not necessarily need to be the case.

shiversaint

Ah right, I had thought it was majority. That (privately) tells me something very interesting about my employer and the path we were originally exploring!