Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits
SGR has developed a comprehensive practice in employee benefits and executive compensation, reaching a clientele with the same broad scope and range as that of the Firm as a whole.
Clients include employers and plan sponsors in a wide variety of industries, plan trustees, private equity funds, fiduciary liability coverage and plan products, employee benefit consultants, third-party administrators, investment advisors, business associations, multiemployer plans, buyers and sellers of businesses and individual executives.
In our practice, we:
- Advise Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") fiduciaries, plan sponsors and plan service providers on ERISA requirements with respect to fiduciary conduct, prohibited transactions, reporting and disclosure
- Assist in resolution, arbitration and litigation, if necessary, of fiduciary controversies, prohibited transactions, benefit claims, funding disputes, plan terminations and mergers and bankruptcy-related benefit matters
- Design, draft and implement benefit plans and equity and non-equity-based executive compensation programs and attend to related financial, fiduciary, securities and tax issues
- Advise and assist boards of directors and compensation committees regarding director and officer compensation plans and arrangements, and the negotiation and drafting of employment contracts and arrangements in anticipation of a change in control, including "golden parachute" issues, as well as securities laws and corporate governance issues, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and disclosure and registration requirements relating to compensation and benefits
- Counsel clients regarding the impact of legislative and regulatory changes, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ("PPACA") on health care arrangements and Internal Revenue Code Section 409A on deferred compensation
- Guide employers on the employee benefit and executive compensation consequences of mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and finance transactions
- Advise boards of trustees of multiemployer collectively bargained plans
- Advise clients regarding retiree welfare plan issues and implementation of funding arrangements
- Assist in the termination of pension and benefit plans, bankruptcy and workout situations, and multiemployer plan withdrawals
- Advise clients on insurance company-related matters, including the ERISA and Internal Revenue Code-related aspects of insurance company demutualizations
- Advise clients regarding real estate and venture capital operating company ("REOC" and "VCOC") entities involving foreign, as well as domestic, investments in conformity with ERISA's plan asset regulations
- Advise clients concerning pension trust investments in private equity securities, asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities, real estate investments and various types of pooled investment arrangements
- Advise clients on all aspects of the fiduciary obligations imposed on plan fiduciaries, including the impact of ERISA's prohibited transaction rules and preparation and submission of requests to the Department of Labor ("DOL") for advisory opinions concerning, or exemptions from, these rules
We design, draft and implement:
- Employment, consulting and separation agreements
- Qualified and non-qualified benefit plans, trusts and other funding arrangements
- Equity and non-equity-based executive compensation programs
- Director compensation plans
SGR was named a Tier 1 firm for Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law for the Jacksonville, Florida metropolitan area in the 2011-2012 U.S. News -- Best Lawyers "Best Law Firms" rankings.
