Bram van Melle

Everaert Advocaten

Amsterdam www.everaert.nl

vanmelle@everaert.nl Tel: +31 20 752 32 00

Biography

Bram is a partner at Everaert Immigration Lawyers, and co-head of its corporate immigration practice group. He provides strategic immigration planning to multinational companies doing business in the Netherlands. He frequently teaches corporate immigration courses to local practitioners, and is a contributing co-editor to Asiel&Migrantenrecht, the leading immigration law review in the Netherlands.

What has been the most significant change in the immigration needs of clients in the past five years?

There have not been big legislative changes, in terms of major overhauls of the system. There has been a subtle but consistent development over these past five years, which has driven our clients’ needs.

The need for advice on overall compliance has become a more dominant element in our practice. Application work is mostly digitalised, permits are issued to companies based on their trusted status with the immigration authorities (sponsor licence) and checks on compliance and enforcement of the rules may only take place long after the permits are issued.

Digital processing sometimes means that a company may receive positive decisions for their employees from our immigration authorities, but later is still sanctioned when the underlying administration is audited and not complete or compliant. It is an interesting change and requires a different approach and type of awareness from the client. This applies not just to the process of obtaining the work and residence permits, but also to other reporting and administrative duties, which come with the company’s recognised sponsorship status.

In what ways has Brexit impacted practice?

Its impact is still growing every day, because there are still companies that seem to find out only now that British nationals are no longer free to work and reside in the Netherlands. Personally, I would have much rather had the UK still in our European project, and it feels strange to service these companies from a country that we basically consider to be our neighbour and apply for work permits for its nationals.

How are technological innovations changing corporate immigration practices?

At the side of the authorities there has been a shift from written applications to more (not all) digital applications. Within our practice, we see that not only our firm has a paper-free office nowadays, but our clients’ personnel files and all communication with our clients are now digital. Covid-19 has only expedited this process towards going fully digital. With all this personal data being exchanged, it is extremely important for all parties to provide safe methods of communication that are in line with GDPR’s requirements.

What challenges will a greater remote-working workforce pose for immigration regulations?

I truly wonder if we are going to indeed see a much greater remote-working workforce. But in any case, remote working causes complications that may be difficult to tackle. Immigration sponsorship by companies ties the individual to the Netherlands, and their absence to work somewhere else remotely may ultimately trigger revocation of the residence permit. The other way around, if someone were to work in the Netherlands remotely, apart from working with an employer of record, it is really difficult to arrange work authorisation if no Dutch sponsoring Dutch company is present. Our immigration system is not really equipped (yet) to accommodate remote working (either sending or receiving remote workers) and I do not anticipate that to change anytime soon.

If you could introduce a reform to Dutch immigration law, what would it be and why?

Our immigration system is pretty inviting towards ‘highly skilled’ migrants. There is however a tremendous shortage of people in certain occupations that I would definitely consider skilled, but for who it would be virtually impossible to obtain work permits (due to salary thresholds). It may be a lot of work to keep it balanced and up to date, but I would like a system where there is more freedom for the authorities to issue work permits based on actual shortages on our labour market.

How does Everaert Advocaten distinguish itself from competition in the market?

We try to invest in young talent, and in general in our people. They are our capital and future. We also invest heavily on our IT and case management systems. This way we keep up with GDPR standards, and it has enabled us to all work from home during covid-19 lockdowns, without causing any interference in the service to our clients.

Last, but definitely not least in the global immigration world, we keep our fees at competitive rates.

Peers and clients say: “Bram is one of the best in the Netherlands” “He is an excellent corporate immigration attorney” “He is very knowledgeable, responsive and approachable”