What we do
Employee share option plans
Plans that hold up through a real financing round, so the option terms, the cap table and the entity granting the options agree with one another.
What the work is
Checking the plan against the structure it sits inside. A plan is usually adopted by board resolution at the top company, and the pool, the vesting schedule and the exercise mechanics all have to be consistent with the cap table that investors will diligence later.
Exercise price is where the jurisdiction of the granting entity starts to matter. A default of par value suits a top company in a jurisdiction with no tax on the grant; the same term somewhere the employee is taxed on exercise creates a bill nobody budgeted for. Where employees sit in more than one country, the plan has to work in each of them, and typically it does not without adjustment.
Four year vesting with a twelve month cliff, quarterly thereafter, is the shape most investors expect. Departing from it is possible and worth doing deliberately rather than by accident.
Where the boundary sits
This is advisory work. We check the plan against the structure, identify where it will fail a financing round, and instruct the drafting to the firm that specialises in it. Tax treatment for a participant in any particular country is a question for their own adviser there.