© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(May 21) — David Schiller, a nationally-recognized employee benefits and executive compensation lawyer, joined Baker Botts as a partner in the firm’s tax department yesterday. Schiller, who leaves Gibson Dunn, will be based in the Dallas office.
“David’s comprehensive knowledge will expand our ability to provide sophisticated employee benefits counsel on M&A transactions and on executive compensation matters generally,” Richard Husseini, chair of Baker Botts’ tax department, said in a statement.
Schiller points to two “hot issues” that he believes will present significant legal challenges for many employers in 2013 and 2014: equity plan design and the Affordable Care Act.
“Public employers are faced with the challenge of designing performance-based equity comp that complies with all relevant legal requirements, is competitive in attracting and retaining top executive talent, and at the same time is also sensitive and responsive to shareholder and shareholder advisory group corporate governance concerns,” he told The Texas Lawbook.
According to Schiller, the cost of complying with the Affordable Care Act for employers with large lower-paid workforces, such as in the retail, hotel or restaurant industries, and the accompanying Shared Responsibility (“Play or Pay”) excise taxes for failure to cover all of one’s full-time employees or failure to cover them at sufficient “affordability” and “minimum value” benchmarks will be particularly challenging.
Two of the Stanford Law graduate’s memorable accomplishments thus far in his career are successfully overturning the Texas Administrative Services Tax on self-funded health plans while representing several Health Fund clients and successfully lobbying the U.S. Treasury Department for changes to pension regulations affecting multiemployer pension funds.
Schiller’s practice includes advising on the tax, ERISA and securities law ramifications of executive compensation, including stock based compensation, nonqualified deferred compensation, employment agreements, golden parachutes, change in control arrangements and severance plans. He also has experience in providing clients counsel on matters such as qualified plans, welfare plans and multiemployer plans.
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