Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation

New laws and shifting demographics are causing the most sweeping changes in employee benefits and executive compensation that U.S. business has seen in decades.

Employers face a range of challenges as they seek to attract the best talent and compete in a global marketplace, including: 

• delivering benefits plans for an increasingly diverse, aging and mobile workforce; 
• managing rising health care costs; 
• responding to the broad-based changes made by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code; and 
• integrating benefit plans with overall corporate governance and risk management.

Katten provides innovative solutions that make the most of this changing environment as employers plan, design and implement employee benefit and executive compensation plans and programs. We take an active role both in the boardroom and in the courtroom. We address legal questions that lack well-defined answers creatively, efficiently and pragmatically.

Katten provides an integrated approach to executive and equity-based compensation. We counsel on tax, accounting and securities issues, as well as estate planning opportunities, institutional shareholder concerns and market trends. Our creative solutions reconcile the varied interests of employers, shareholders and executives in a post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment.

With experience in thousands of corporate transactions, Katten understands how to promote growth through the purchase of desired capabilities or assets, through mergers and acquisitions, and through joint ventures and other partner
arrangements. We conduct due diligence and spin-off planning to avoid benefits “surprises” in the purchase or sale of a business, conduct post-closing due diligence, and advise with respect to the disposition of acquired plans. We also prepare severance plans, retention and change-in-control agreements, and “rabbi trusts” designed to allow employees to focus on performance as opposed to job security concerns. 

Our attorneys also assist clients with:

• designing, implementing and administering tax-qualified retirement, 401(k), money purchase, profit sharing and employee stock ownership plans; 
• negotiating and drafting contracts with trustees, investment managers, third party administrators and other service providers; 
• managing benefit claims and appeals;
• designing, implementing and maintaining employee health and welfare benefit plans, including self-funded, insured and managed health care, life insurance, disability plans, cafeteria plans and flexible spending accounts;
• investing employee benefit plan assets and counseling plan fiduciaries on compliance with ERISA requirements;
• litigating ERISA disputes;
• negotiating fair corrections under the IRS and DOL correction programs; and
• developing Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).