Stone King facilitates overseas recruitment for Taiwanese bubble tea franchise

The Immigration Team at national law firm Stone King assisted fast-growing Taiwanese bubble tea franchise T4 to become a sponsor licence holder and bring tea specialists over from Taiwan, including during the pandemic, to support its UK business growth. The Home Office had previously rejected an initial application for a sponsor licence.

Julie Moktadir, Head of Immigration Team and Faith Sector at Stone King, said: “The licence application was challenging as T4 operated as a virtual business model, and we needed to show that they satisfied the Home Office’s requirements around HR processes and procedures to monitor any sponsored workers and to meet sponsorship duties. The vacant positions within T4 were also very specialist and it was important to emphasise the prospective candidate’s experience and knowledge of Taiwanese Tea given that these roles did not neatly fit within the list of UKVI SOC Codes. We’ve also been able to assist T4 with updating the Sponsor Management System when they moved their registered office, as well as on general matters such as right to work checks.”

Since securing the sponsor licence, Stone King has assisted in successful applications to bring four Taiwanese nationals to the UK on Skilled Worker visas to support T4’s UK operations, including three Product Quality Control Managers.

Julie added: “These applications were, again, not straightforward given the niche area of specialism, which is not included on the skilled worker list, but we are delighted that our representations on behalf of our client have been successful each time.”

T4 was founded in Taiwan in 2004 with the philosophy of connecting people through a cup of tea, focusing on quality, artisan tea prepared in small batches. The franchise currently has 40 branches across the UK.

Luis Liu, CEO of T4, said: “We are grateful to the team at Stone King for their advice and guidance. We are a growing franchise and particularly at the point where our initial application for a sponsor license was unsuccessful we urgently needed to fill specialist roles. The team’s swift support meant that we could do this. We have since instructed Stone King each time the business needed to sponsor individuals to fill specialist roles to ensure the quality and authenticity of our products and operation.”

If you need support on becoming a sponsor license holder or processing visa applications, please get in touch with our Immigration team.