Practice Areas & Industries: Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Wachtell Lipton's executive compensation and benefits practice handles some of the most sensitive issues in mergers and acquisitions and other extraordinary corporate events. In many transactions that the firm handles, executive compensation and other "social issues" are the most critical and highly negotiated aspects of a transaction. CEO succession, board composition and similar issues are critical to the success of merger-of-equals transactions, and rational executive compensation arrangements are often the foundation of people-based transactions involving investment banks, asset management firms and other businesses that depend on intellectual capital. Wachtell Lipton's lawyers have a remarkable opportunity to work closely with the most senior executives of its largest clients, both in the transaction context and on issues of ongoing compensation. Our executive compensation and benefits practice requires expertise in certain aspects of tax, securities and corporate laws. The need for legal expertise in the executive compensation area is on the rise, and the practice is always evolving as tax rules, securities laws and corporate governance standards relating to executive compensation continue to change in response to scrutiny by shareholder activists and the popular press.