FEATURE
Temporary transfer I
How to avoid the pitfalls of cross-border employee moves. By Derek Hill
t's a rainy, dreary night, and the mud- splattered black SUV fi nally pulls away from the Canadian border. Th e child in the back has thankfully cried herself to sleep in her car seat, amidst a clutter
of sippy cups, overturned picture books, and plastic toys. Meanwhile, the senior executive sits in the front passenger seat aſt er deliver- ing a terse "You drive" to her spouse. She's speaking loudly into her phone, as if that will somehow improve her poor cellphone reception. "No," she says. "Th ey didn't let us through.
Something's wrong with the documentation you couriered. Listen, we've got to get a ho-
tel and we've been on the road since six this morning. I won't be able to make it in tomor- row. I know — but the project's just going to have to wait. Call me back in an hour." On the other end, the line goes dead —
and, somewhere, a Canadian in-house coun- sel belatedly realizes she should have consult- ed an immigration law specialist with respect to the intracompany transfer. "If someone very senior has shown up at
a port of entry from the States, for example, they've driven up with their family, and they're in their van, and they're coming up, and all of a sudden they're sent back. . . . I wouldn't mean to frighten in-house counsel, but these are sometimes the reasons why I get calls," says John Petrykanyn, a Toronto
C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE OC T OBER 2008 7
