Carlos Colón-Machargo is a member of Ogletree Deakins’ Cross-Border Practice Group, which provides labor and employment legal advice and solutions to U.S. clients with operations around the globe. As a native Spanish speaker, Carlos focuses on Latin America, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico.
His experience includes providing legal advice to employers on all aspects of international personnel actions, including hiring and onboarding, background checks, discipline, terminations, reductions-in-force, retaliation, discrimination, sexual harassment, compliance with local statutory entitlements and requirements and data privacy regulations.
Carlos advises clients on diversity, equity and inclusion matters; compensation and employee benefits; employment-related mergers and acquisitions; intellectual property ownership and transfer; employment-related tax concerns, permanent establishment and payroll contribution issues; the formation and registration of entities abroad to serve as employers; and employment mobility and immigration.
His professional skills include drafting and negotiating employment contracts ─ including restrictive covenants, employment agreements, independent contractor agreements, settlement agreements and releases, secondment agreements and assignment letters; drafting global employment handbooks, policies and codes of ethics; and conducting both domestic and global workplace investigations and employment audits.
Carlos also represents clients in litigation before federal and state courts and administrative agencies in Puerto Rico and the United States.
Before joining Ogletree Deakins, Carlos was in private practice engaged on employment, business law and tax matters in Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Carlos began his legal career at Region 29 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Brooklyn, New York. He obtained an LL.M. in Labor and Employment Law from the Georgetown University Law Center and is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licensed in Florida.
