benblaney

A moderately-rare situation, I'm sure.

British L1A visa holder employed by a Fortune 250 company, which is about to spin into three, separate, publicly-traded companies.

What is impact if GC process is started now? Would it be best to wait until the new legal entity is created?

Any thoughts?

ian-mstm

My guess is that if the original sponsoring company ends up broken up into 3 new entities, then it's probably best to wait until that gets sorted. If the original sponsoring company is still left standing after the other two are created, you should be fine if the process is started now.

Ian

benblaney

Original sponsoring company will still exist after the spin, but the individual in question will work for one of the other parts...

ian-mstm

Ah! Well then... and I'm not 100% sure about this, if the person no longer works for the original sponsoring company, he may need to be sponsored by the new entity once it's created, and a new L-1A applied for... which is going to be difficult if he can't prove he's worked for the company for at least 1 out of the past 3 years! If... if you see what I mean!

Ian

S Folinsky

What do the attorneys involved have to say?

benblaney

Don't know yet. This was a pre-emptive opinion-gathering exercise to see if the employee in question should push hard now to get things started, or kick back and wait.

zerlesen

Yeah, although if the job title or responsibilities change in any way after the restructuring that can potentially (not necessarily likely in this case, but still) cause problems with the I-140, I think.

Depending on how soon all of this is going to happen, AC-21 could come into play: six months after the filing of an AOS application you're free to change jobs (within the same occupational classification) and so all these issues would be moot - but I think that requires the application to be based on an approved I-140 (rather than concurrently filed). (My command of the details of this stuff is getting weaker and weaker the less I have to worry about it personally, I'm afraid.)

washsaint

Re. AC21 and an approved I140.....

The advice I have been given is that an I140 does NOT need to be approved prior to invoking AC21. The application must have been filed for at least 6 months and the new job must be very similar to the old job. Apparently after 6 months an employer cannot (although it appears vague) revoke an I140 application.

Also been told this is very risky - if the I140 is denied or an RFE issued you are immediately out of status.