Practice Areas & Industries: Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC

Practice/Industry Group Overview

The firm represents clients in a variety of complex executive compensation matters which span companies (both public and private) to representing individual executives in their negotiations with existing or prospective employers. The experience of lawyers in our Executive Compensation Group includes advising clients with respect to ERISA, federal income and employment tax, and securities law issues related to the design, establishment, operation and termination of a variety of executive compensation programs.

These programs include:

• Employment agreements
• Equity-based compensation plans
  • Stock options
  • Restricted stock
  • Stock appreciation rights
  • Phantom stock
• Non-qualified deferred compensation plans
• Executive compensation arrangements
• Long-term incentive plans
• Split dollar life insurance arrangements

Services Available

Our lawyers work closely with management, business owners, in-house counsel, consultants, accountants, actuaries and other professional advisors to achieve comprehensive, cost-effective, value-added results for executive compensation planning for all types of entities.

In addition, we counsel executives of tax-exempt organizations and trade associations on eligible and ineligible Code §457 arrangements; draft and review rabbi trusts and secular trusts to fund executive compensation benefits; and advise clients on the tax planning and design issues involving golden parachute payments.

Representative transactions include:

• Employee benefits counsel for a number of publicly traded corporations.
• Representing private and publicly traded companies and individuals with respect to executive compensation matters, including employment agreements and the complex securities laws issues related thereto.
• Representing both venture capitalists and executives of start-ups in connection with employment agreements to be executed at the closing of a financing and any significant tax and securities laws issues related thereto.
• Representing executives in connection with lawsuits against former employers.
• Representing companies in connection with actions against former employees to enforce noncompete, confidentiality, and ownership of invention agreements and to seek damages for breaches by the employee under such agreements and employment agreements generally.
• Federal securities law issues, including SEC reporting obligations.