With the financial crisis and recession behind us, mergers and acquisitions have picked up dramatically over the past several years. In 2015, more than 25,000 M&A deals were announced in the United States, valued at trillions of dollars, primarily involving companies in the hospitality, health care, pharmaceuticals, energy, and technology industries. This year and next, most financial experts foresee an increasing number of these transactions taking place.

In an M&A transaction, the buyer must determine whether it will acquire only the assets of the target company or acquire both the assets and liabilities of that company. Based on that determination, the transaction can be structured as an asset acquisition or a stock acquisition. In a stock transaction (including the typical merger), there is no technical change other than pure ownership. The new owner merely steps into the shoes of the selling shareholders and inherits all assets and liabilities of the business.

In an asset deal, however, a new owner may accept or reject specific assets and liabilities. While this structure typically leaves the buyer free to terminate many of the seller’s employees and bring in its own management team, there are circumstances under which an asset purchaser may nevertheless be liable if care is not taken.

Buyers and sellers alike should carefully consider the labor and employment implications of a proposed transaction and not merely focus on business and financial issues. Otherwise, the parties may walk into multimillion dollar class and collective action lawsuits, incur serious benefit plan obligations, and create unnecessary employee morale issues.

Some of the more serious issues facing hospitality entities might include employee misclassification (as independent contractors or as exempt white-collar employees not entitled to overtime pay), non-compete and trade secret agreements, union collective bargaining agreements, immigration matters, discrimination in employee layoff and retention, individual employment agreement issues, executive compensation plans, and federal and state facility closing and mass layoff laws.

When an M&A transaction is contemplated, in-house counsel and outside corporate counsel must consider all employment and labor implications of the transaction early in the planning process. As part of their due diligence, counsel for the buyer should solicit and acquire copies of, among other things, all of the target company’s individual employment contracts, executive compensation plans, employee handbooks and personnel manuals, union collective bargaining agreements, benefit plan documents, and information with respect to all of the target’s pending federal, state and local governmental employment lawsuits, administrative proceedings, and other matters.

From a hotel buyer’s perspective, all of the employment and labor implications should be considered quite early in the transaction process, while the buyer still has the opportunity to withdraw from the transaction. A buyer must decide whether it is willing to assume the target business’s labor and employment-related liabilities and union obligations (if any), and how these considerations might impact the purchase price. To accomplish its objectives, the buyer will have to carefully negotiate with the seller and then draft the necessary purchase agreement language to identify the significant assets.

Whether to buy a unionized hotel or restaurant will depend upon the strength and weaknesses of the unions involved, language in the collective bargaining agreements, and collateral obligations that might arise under any currently outstanding orders or from pending proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”). Further, in some locations, with respect to certain industries (e.g., the building service and maintenance industry in New York), local governments have enacted laws, rules, and regulations requiring an acquiring company to continue to employ the seller’s employees for 60 or 90 days. Pursuant to those laws, prospective buyers might not legally be able to bring in their own workforce to take over the acquired operations for many months, if at all.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) creates significant potential liability upon an acquiring company with respect to multi-employer pension plans that have been created and maintained pursuant to the Taft-Hartley Act. For example, upon a hotel or restaurant shutdown or mass layoff, ERISA imposes upon buyers in some circumstances the obligation to absorb a withdrawal liability that normally would attach to a seller. Buyer’s counsel in these cases must carefully consider whether the buyer wishes to assume such liability and whether to insist upon a reduction in the purchase price to cover the potential cost of that liability. And, counsel for the seller, of course, will want to insure that any such liability is shifted to the buyer. In a stock transaction on the other hand, aside from the change in ownership, there is no legally cognizable change in the business. Thus, a withdrawal liability will not be triggered (although the new stock owner will inherit ongoing pension fund obligations). Once the decision has been made with respect to whether the transaction will be a stock or an asset transaction, labor and employment law counsel for both seller and buyer must pay careful attention to the drafting of the purchase agreement, its representations and warranties, indemnities, disclosures, and related matters.

Additionally, employers intending to downsize a workforce after an acquisition must pay particular attention to obtaining a census of employees to avoid allegations of selective discrimination in the process. Once the dust settles after an acquisition has been implemented, housekeeping and front-desk employees, managers, and others may find themselves facing a brave new world. The consequences of a restructuring often are unintended as to employee morale and employment policies. Employees treated with dignity are less likely to become class action plaintiffs than those quickly shown the door. In any subsequent litigation, jurors tend to be less sympathetic to employers that fail to consider the impact of the transaction upon employees and their families. Many of these issues should be dealt with upfront early during the sale and acquisition process.

As the U.S. economy rebounds and corporations pick up the pace of restructuring, acquisitions and mergers, it is essential that complex and subtle labor and employment implications of these transactions be considered and dealt with at an early stage, so as to avoid or limit potential liabilities.

What Hospitality Employers Should Do Now

As part of the due diligence process in any acquisition or merger, hospitality employers should do the following:

• Have your employment counsel request from the company to be acquired or merged with:

• all individual employment and union collective bargaining agreements, confidentiality and non-compete agreements, employee handbooks and personnel manuals, executive compensation plans, and benefit fund documents, including summary plan descriptions;

• all files pertaining to any currently open or pending federal, state, and local governmental employment lawsuits and administrative proceedings, as well as to recently closed matters;

• a complete census of current employees, their job titles, compensation levels, and, to the extent available in company records or by visual observation, their ethnicities, ages, disabilities, and other legally protected characteristics; and

• information regarding the economic valuation of different properties, facilities, and related assets in order to target asking prices if a decision were to be made to dispose of any.

• Assemble a team of legal and human resource professionals to focus on the details of the acquisition or merger.

• Consult with outside labor and employment law counsel with respect to any or all of the above matters.