Executive Compensation
Because Squire Sanders has advised hundreds of clients in many diverse industries on establishing executive compensation plans, we can advise you on all the factors involved in structuring executive compensation.Our expertise extends to advising you on formulating executive compensation packages designed to help you attract and retain the best people.
Our clients range from publicly held Fortune 500 companies to family-owned businesses to high-tech startup enterprises. Squire Sanders lawyers have designed stock option plans (both incentive stock options and nonqualified options), restricted stock plans, deferred compensation arrangements, rabbi trusts, golden parachutes, leveraged stock purchase plans, and performance bonus plans. We have counseled executives signing their initial employment contracts with a company, and drafted severance agreements for executives who are being terminated. We have extensive familiarity with the tax, corporate, ERISA and labor issues relating to such plans and agreements.
Some of Squire Sanders' recent projects include:
- Designing a leveraged stock purchase plan allowing executives in a closely held company to purchase restricted stock using partially nonrecourse notes.
- Crafting golden parachute agreements for executives with a company that anticipates being acquired in the near future.
- Developing an equity compensation plan for a company undergoing a debt restructuring.
- Developing a deferred compensation plan for key sales employees of a company.
- Reviewing compensation plans of a target company to ensure maximum tax deductions for the company on its final return as a result of the acquisition.
We also develop sophisticated, broad-based employee benefit programs and have earned a reputation as a national leader in employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), including leveraged and nonleveraged ESOPs.