Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation

Our team assists clients in complying with the technical employee benefit and executive compensation requirements of the Internal Revenue Code (“the Code”) and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). Businesses of all sizes — from sole proprietorships to partnerships, professional corporations, midsize companies, and large publicly held corporations — rely on our timely and business-savvy advice. We team up with our clients to provide them practical and thoughtful guidance, solutions, and assistance in the design, drafting, administration, amendment, and correction of their employee benefit and executive compensation plans and agreements.

In advising clients, we always keep in mind that while employee benefit programs are a source of enhanced employee satisfaction and productivity, they also are a significant expense for every business. We focus on the design, implementation, and administration of various types of benefit plans that fit our clients’ human resources needs. Our experience includes assisting clients with defined benefit plans, 401(k) plans, employee stock ownership plans (“ESOPs”), executive compensation plans and agreements, group health plans, and Code section 125 cafeteria plans. We also help clients with non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements, non-qualified and incentive stock option (“ISO”) plans (and other equity-based compensation arrangements), employment agreements, severance arrangements, change of control agreements, life and disability insurance programs, and other types of benefits for both executives and rank-and-file employees.

We draft plan and trust documents, provide guidance on the tax implications of various plans, help clients meet their fiduciary responsibilities, and address any governance issues. Our unique subject-matter knowledge is often included in AGG’s multidisciplinary teams that advise companies on corporate mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions.

We routinely represent clients and their plans before the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) and the Department of Labor (“DOL”), obtaining determinations from those regulatory agencies and helping correct employee benefit plan deficiencies through IRS and DOL voluntary compliance programs. Our experience allows us to solve problems by proposing practical and innovative solutions that fit our clients’ internal procedures and needs while also satisfying the requirements of the relevant regulatory authority. In this connection, with respect to group health plans — a critical component of most employers’ benefits programs — we advise clients with respect to implementing and administering such plans, with the combined goal of protecting the client from unwanted liability and meeting their employee benefits needs. Other health- and welfare benefit plan-related services include the negotiation of contracts with insurance companies and third-party administration firms and compliance with applicable state and federal laws impacting such plans, including ERISA, the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (“COBRA”), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”), and the Mental Health Parity Act.