A qualifying parent-subsidiary relationship is one requirement, but it must be proved through ownership and control. The beneficiary’s foreign employment, U.S. managerial or executive duties and international business activity remain necessary.
Follow the legal chain
Identify the foreign employer and trace the connection to the U.S. petitioner through any intermediate entities. Do not infer the relationship from shared branding or a chart alone.
Have counsel review voting rights and governance arrangements that affect control. Even a well-documented subsidiary relationship does not establish that a proposed operational job is primarily managerial or executive. Order the enquiry so each answer narrows the next.
Establish the ownership chain first, then the beneficiary qualifying year abroad, then the content of the proposed U.S. role. The year abroad is a threshold fact: one continuous year of qualifying employment with a related entity within the three years preceding the petition, and no amount of managerial responsibility in the U.S.
position substitutes for it. Hypothetical example: a production manager at a Canadian food-processing company is proposed for a U.S. plant role.
The employment record shows eleven months with the operating company and an earlier period with a sister entity under a different payroll. That gap is the first thing to resolve, because it determines whether the case exists at all. Only once it is settled is it worth analysing whether the proposed U.S.
duties are primarily managerial or executive rather than the hands-on production work the same title often describes.