Extending Your Intra-Company Transfer Work Permit During COVID-19.

Every business is experiencing hard times during this uncontrollable COVID-19 pandemic. Your previous plans must change completely and you have to adjust your business accordingly. You have to hold on tight to your ultimate goal. That’s just what happened with our Intra-Company Transfer client who came to Canada in 2020 to open a new restaurant business. Some might think that the timing was not ideal. And that’s a fair assessment.

However, our client and our team have been very motivated and focused and never gave up on the bigger goal – to be a successful business in Canada. That motivation has helped us to be successful in renewing the initial work permit for another 2 years.

Here’s a brief history of this successful immigration case:

• The client is an experienced restaurant owner of Turkish origin with experience in running restaurants in Turkey and Germany;
• He has found Sobirovs Law Firm in late 2019 when searching for a reliable legal team that can help him to expand his restaurant operations to Canada, and help him bring his family from Germany to Canada;
• In late 2019, we have created a solid business immigration strategy for the client’s business and his family that would allow us to expand the business and bring the family before the start of the next academic year so that the children’s education would not be interrupted;
• We successfully obtained a 1-year Intra-Company Transfer work permit for the client in January 2020 and relevant permits for the family later on;
• But in March 2020, all our strategies and plans were stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions imposed by the Canadian authorities;
• Because the client had a work visa approved before the travel restrictions, he could travel to Canada and obtain his work permit at the border;
• The difficulty to find the right location for the restaurant and arranging the lease agreement took a long time due to business closures caused by COVID-19;
• Therefore, the client could not launch his restaurant business in 2020 due to factors that were beyond his or our control. And his family could not travel to Canada;
• The client managed to find the right place for his restaurant just before the expiry of his 1-year work permit;
• Our team has prepared a solid application for the renewal of the work permit and explained the client’s situation and desire to open a restaurant regardless of existing difficulties caused by the pandemic;
• At the end of January 2021, we have obtained a new 2-year work permit for the client. Now, we are preparing to apply for the client’s family and we hope that this time things will be different;
• In the meantime, the client’s restaurant is operating under the current COVID-19 restrictions and keeping the focus on the success of the business.

The main lesson that we can get from this story is:

“Crises come and go. You should focus on your goal and move the needle forward every day!” We thank our team who worked relentlessly and our client who has put his trust on us during difficult times.

If you want to work with a dedicated legal team of experienced Canadian business immigration lawyers, contact Sobirovs today. It’ll be our pleasure to work with you!