Employee Ownership Blog

In In re McKesson HBOC Inc. ERISA Litigation, No. C-00-20030 RMW, (U.S. Dist. Ct., 9/9/05), a U.S. district court rejected the arguments made in the Moench v.

Perhaps the most complicated rules for expensing equity plan compensation are those concerning tax effects. Particularly troubling for many companies has been how to handle transitional issues moving from APB 25 to FAS123(R) for the "additional paid-in capital" attributable to tax effects.

The "2005 Global Equity Incentives Survey Report" from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that 24.4% of the 82 respondents with U.S. employees make all staff eligible for options, 4.8% make all staff eligible for restricted stock units, and 5.6% for restricted stock.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating a broad pattern of felicitously timed stock option grants, looking into the possibility that they were improperly backdated.

ESOPs, 401(k) plans, profit sharing, and other plans would be eliminated

Despite increasing unease with the levels of top executive compensation, a recent WatsonWyatt/WorldatWork study shows that 73% of large companies want their top executives to be at or above the medi

A new, definitive study of employee investments in 401(k) plans shows that the percentage of allocations going to company stock has gradually declined from a high of 19% in 1996 to 15% in 2004. Moreover, younger workers are less likely to invest in company stock than older ones.

Key new limits for qualified plans in 2006 will include the following:

The NCEO's annual board elections will be held in January by email. Board members serve for a three-year term and can run for reelection one time. Board members must attend the annual board meeting just before the annual conference and be available for periodic conference calls.

On September 29, 2005, the IRS issued proposed regulations under Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code detailing how companies will need to comply with the deferred compensation rules created by the American Jobs Creation Act.

In "Executive and Broad-Based Stock Options: Evidence from U.S. Panel Data," James Sesil of Rutgers and Yu Peng Li of the State University of New York at Buffalo look the performance of 291 companies after the introduction of both executive and broad-based options.

The annual Innovations in Employee Ownership Award is a new program jointly developed by the NCEO and the Beyster Institute to recognize outstanding achievement in innovative employee ownership practices.