Practice Expertise

  • Executive Compensation/Employee Benefits
  • Corporate
  • Corporate Governance and Board Advisory
  • Tax

Areas of Practice

  • Corporate
  • Corporate Governance and Board Advisory
  • Executive Compensation/Employee Benefits
  • Tax
  • Accounting Firm Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Emerging Growth and Venture Capital
  • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
  • ERISA Litigation
  • Sustainability and ESG
  • View More

Profile

Tony’s multi-disciplinary legal practice focuses on executive compensation, ESOPs and employee benefit arrangements (including their related tax, accounting, securities and corporate governance issues) in the United States and abroad.

He leads the Firm’s Compensation Practice Group. Before entering private practice, Tony served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Representative Experience

Corporate Representation: Advises private and publicly-traded clients and their boards of directors on compensation and benefits matters, including:

  • Drafting and maintaining equity and synthetic equity plans
  • Drafting CD&As
  • Addressing issues under applicable federal and state securities laws
  • Addressing listing requirements under NYSE, NASDAQ and TSX exchanges
  • Advising on institutional shareholder expectations and requirements
  • Advising pre-IPO companies on their compensation arrangements
  • Advising on various tax issues relating to the deductibility of compensation
  • Negotiating and preparing documents for the hiring and firing of key employees
  • Drafting executive agreements under U.S. and/or PRC laws
  • Structuring international compensation arrangements, including recharge agreements, international assignments and secondment agreements
  • Negotiating, designing and drafting compensatory profits interests for partnerships and LLCs taxed as a partnership
  • Designing, drafting and administering retirement plans (e.g. 401(k), 403(b) and defined benefit plans) and health and welfare plans (including self-funded arrangements)

Transactions: Advises clients on compensation and benefit issues associated with corporate transactions, including:

  • Tailoring of transaction documents
  • Performing Section 280G analyses and associated benchmarking
  • Designing change-in-control bonus plans, management carve-out agreements and other retention arrangements
  • Drafting option cancellation/assumption agreements and inducement plans
  • Negotiating non-compete and non-solicitation clauses
  • Addressing incentive and retention issues
  • Merging employee benefit plans

Section 409A: Helps clients comply with all aspects of Section 409A and its application to traditional non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements, equity plans, employment and severance arrangements, bonus arrangements and reimbursement arrangements

ESOPs: Designs and implements a business owner's sale of stock to an employee stock ownership plan for the purpose of triggering an exit strategy, deferring capital gains taxes and implementing succession strategies

Executive Representation: Represents numerous executives in complex negotiations of their hiring or termination of employment

Education
BA, Michigan State University, 1993

Areas of Practice

  • Corporate
  • Corporate Governance and Board Advisory
  • Executive Compensation/Employee Benefits
  • Tax
  • Accounting Firm Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Emerging Growth and Venture Capital
  • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
  • ERISA Litigation
  • Sustainability and ESG

Professional Career



Articles

Additional Articles
  • Pay Ratio Not Applicable to Certain Externally-Managed Issuers
  • Pay a Bonus Early to Increase a Corporation’s Cash Flow?, Executive Compensation Practical Pointers
  • CEO Pay Ratio Disclosure: State and Local Governments May Add to Burden, Executive Compensation Practical Pointers
  • Six Key Considerations: Executive Contract Negotiations, Straightline
  • Pay Versus Performance Proxy Disclosure: Takeaways From Major Players In Three REIT Sectors, Real Estate Finance Journal
  • Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel, Thomson Reuters
  • Compensation Governance Survey of the Top 25 Energy Companies

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