Emily’s practice includes a broad range of employee benefits and executive compensation matters, including handling such matters as part of corporate, M&A and private equity transactions.
Emily has broad experience counseling private equity funds and other public and private companies on benefits, ERISA, and executive compensation issues (including Code Section 409A and 280G issues) that arise in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, and carve-out transactions. She regularly advises clients on the various legal requirements for qualified and nonqualified retirement plans and health and welfare benefit plans and on the design and administration of equity and equity-like incentive programs and arrangements. She also represents clients with respect to voluntary compliance correction filings, Affordable Care Act assessments, and other audits and inquiries from the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. In addition, Emily’s practice includes negotiating and drafting of executive employment agreements and helping clients navigate executive onboarding, transitions and exits.
Representative Experience
- Counseled several clients through a standard termination process with the PBGC for its defined benefit pension plan and the associated pension risk transfer transaction while the client was undergoing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.
- Counseled a public company client through a proposed disqualification by the IRS of its defined benefit pension plan, resulting in a downgrade of the inquiry into a regular course audit and the ultimate resolution of no corrective action.
- Counseled a private equity portfolio company on several post-closing compliance corrections for its 401(k) plan under the IRS’s voluntary correction program and the Department of Labor’s delinquent filer voluntary compliance program.
- Coordinated and drafted several appeals of proposed employer shared responsibility payments (ESRPs) under the Affordable Care Act from the IRS, resulting in multiple years of reduced ESRPs for the clients.
- Represented Blue Marlin Partners in acquiring a stake in Mo' Bettahs, a Hawaiian-Style Barbecue restaurant chain.
- Represented Gridiron Capital in the sale of Foundation Wellness, a leading consumer wellness platform that designs, manufactures, markets, and sells high-value branded wellness products, to Bansk Group.