Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP

For more than 40 years, Eversheds Sutherland has helped clients find practical and innovative solutions to employee benefits and executive compensation issues.

Eversheds Sutherland’s skilled employee benefits and executive compensation team is adept at finding creative solutions to our client’s legal and technical challenges. With 14 attorneys dedicated to this practice area, we have substantial knowledge and understanding in the nuances of qualified retirement plans, health and welfare benefits and executive compensation. We counsel employers in connection with ongoing plan design and compliance, corporate transactions and negotiations with government agencies, as well as financial services companies with respect to retirement products and services.

Our broad-based knowledge and varied backgrounds are key in helping clients find innovative approaches to employee benefits and executive compensation. Our attorneys have served at the Department of Labor and on Congressional staffs, and have gone on to leadership positions at the U.S. Treasury. We represent public and private companies, non-profit entities and governmental organizations; and we have extensive experience representing providers of retirement plan and other benefits services and products.

We are comfortable working with various departments within client companies—including HR, tax and legal—while maintaining effective communications and an appropriate chain of command. Each of our benefits and executive compensation attorneys has particular specialties, but we do not work in silos—we all have substantial experience with the different types of plans and transactions in our field.

Why Eversheds Sutherland

Health and welfare understanding. We have advised on health and welfare benefits, including compliance under the Internal Revenue Code and ERISA, over a substantially longer period than most law firms. This includes health savings accounts and reimbursement arrangements, flexible spending accounts and other cafeteria (section 125) plans. We are thoroughly familiar not only with traditional health and welfare benefit programs but also with post-retirement life and medical benefits, voluntary employees' beneficiary association (VEBA) trusts, severance and vacation pay programs and other similar arrangements. We are actively counseling insurers and several Fortune 500 companies on employer compliance with national health reform under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Sophistication on executive matters. We are sensitive to the dynamics of executive compensation issues and deal with them effectively. We regularly assist in negotiating high-level executive employment agreements and structuring virtually all forms of elective and non-elective compensation and incentive programs. We advise on life, health and other welfare benefits for executives as well as issues involving company-provided transportation and other fringe benefits. Our lawyers are well versed in the securities laws applicable to executive compensation.

M&A experience. We negotiate the benefits provisions in transactions, perform due diligence, draft acquisition agreements and agreements used in spin-offs, and assist in implementing the integration or transition to new benefits arrangements on behalf of both buyers and sellers. At times, we participate as part of a team from the firm handling all aspects of the transaction; at other times, clients engage us specifically to resolve employee benefits issues.

Retirement incentives and layoff cushions. We assist a number of clients in structuring retirement incentives, right-sizing programs and similar arrangements in accordance with tax, ERISA, age discrimination and other legal requirements. We address enhanced benefits both inside and outside qualified pension plans, appropriate welfare benefit program continuation and the design and implementation of effective ADEA waivers in the context of involuntary layoffs and voluntary window programs.

Federal knowledge. We regularly represent clients in dealing with the various federal regulatory agencies responsible for employee benefits. On some occasions, we seek guidance or relief from those agencies; on others, we respond to issues raised by an agency. We are well acquainted with key personnel at the Treasury, IRS, DOL, PBGC, SEC and EEOC, and with the formal and informal procedures for dealing with them.

Nuts and Bolts

Eversheds Sutherland's employee benefits and executive compensation practice has broad and deep experience in all aspects of the field including:

• Qualified retirement plans
  
  • Compliance reviews
  • IRS correction programs, including self-correction (SCP), the voluntary correction program (VCP) and the Audit Closing Agreement Program (Audit CAP)
• Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
• ERISA’s fiduciary and prohibited transaction rules
• ERISA litigation
• Health plans
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
• HIPAA and COBRA
• Welfare programs and benefits
• Executive compensation
• Code section 409A
• Deferred compensation
• Proxy compensation disclosure
• Equity compensation
• Code section 162(m)
• Fringe benefits
• Payroll tax and withholding

Take Action

§  “Diversity at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP” to “Diversity at Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP”

§  “Diversity” section:

o   The firm’s emphasis on diversity is reflected in numerous ways throughout the firm, such as the manner in which we recruit lawyers and other employees, our work-life policies and our professional service efforts. We have been recognized for our achievements in diversity.  More importantly, we understand the significant role a diverse community plays in the firm's growth and development.

§  “Our Awards and Recognitions” section:

o   Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP continues to be recognized for its efforts to promote diversity in the workplace and in the legal profession. In 2016 we were named a “Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality,” having earned a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, and we also were ranked a Top 100 Firm for Minority Attorneys by Law360. In addition, the firm was awarded the Gold Standard Certification for the fifth consecutive year by the Women in Law Empowerment Forum.

§  “Our Commitment” section:

o   Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP is committed to promoting diversity within the firm and in the legal profession.  We believe that diverse skills, knowledge and viewpoints make us a stronger, more productive law firm.  We hire and promote qualified lawyers and other professionals regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, disability, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation.  We understand that diversity enhances our value to clients by allowing us to staff our client teams with professionals who possess broad experiences and a spectrum of perspectives.

o   Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP has a cross-office Diversity Committee with responsibility for supporting and enhancing our firm culture.  Our committee has helped coordinate and lead a number of efforts to advance diversity within our firm and the community. Affinity groups at the firm serve as support networks for attorneys of color; women lawyers; and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender attorneys.

o   We are committed to working with our clients as they pursue the common goal of a professional workplace where opportunity is available to all.