Experience
Our team advises a wide variety of clients including multinational publicly listed companies and their subsidiaries in Ireland, private companies including venture backed and high growth companies, financial institutions, trustees and individual awardees.
Our areas of expertise include advising on:
INCENTIVE PLANS AND ARRANGEMENTS
We advise on the establishment and operation of a wide variety of incentive plans and arrangements, including Revenue-approved and unapproved schemes, bonus plans and cash arrangements
We advise on tax structures that achieve cost savings
- We provide guidance to trustees on their duties in relation to the operation and wind-up of employee share ownership trusts
- We advise on the engagement of third-party administrators, trustees and advisers and regularly work in collaboration with our clients’ remuneration consultants and other professional advisers
- We adapt existing global plans of multinational companies for Irish employees
- We provide guidance on compliance with tax, securities, employment, regulatory, corporate and other applicable laws, as well as litigation risk
- We represent our clients in relation to awardee disputes
- We advise on market practice and investors’ views
CORPORATE TRANSACTIONS
We advise on the impact on incentive plans in the context of complex mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings, demergers, restructurings, public takeovers, management buyouts and privatisations
- We design incentive plans with corporate transactions specifically in mind
- We review, negotiate and draft the contractual provisions that govern incentives
- We undertake due diligence of current incentive plans
- We advise on the implementation and integration of incentive arrangements post-closing in a manner that ensures the retention of key employees
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND EXECUTIVE REMUNERATION
- We advise boards of directors, remuneration and compensation committees and management on the various aspects of corporate governance compliance, which is increasingly relevant to the remuneration of senior executives of listed companies
- We keep our clients informed about the latest corporate governance developments
- We draft and review remuneration policies and remuneration reports
- We work closely with our employment team to advise our clients on remuneration issues that arise on the hiring and termination of senior executives and key employees, such as remuneration packages, severance obligations and settlement arrangements
- We help mitigate reputational risk in relation to executive compensation
- We advise on litigation issues that relate to executive remuneration
- We advise a broad variety of financial institutions, including investment banks, banking groups, asset managers and insurers on complex regulatory issues impacting their remuneration arrangements
Additional Services to Clients
We are committed to adding value to our clients and keeping them up to date on the latest legal developments across areas relevant to their business. We tailor our value-added services to best suit each client’s broader strategic goals as our relationship with them develops. The team produces client briefings on topical issues for employers including case analyses, market trends and legislation updates. The team also works closely with other teams within the firm, such as the employment, corporate and tax teams to produce joint briefings, events, and webinars for clients where a topic benefits from a multi-specialist approach. The team offers bespoke training sessions to clients, including remuneration committees on key incentive and remuneration issues specific to their workplace and to the sector that they operate in.