Site Search
Professionals 156 results
Capabilities 49 results
Practice Area
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation
With attorneys based in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., Winston’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation (EBEC) team represents a broad range of plan sponsors and offers clients not just deal support but the full suite of employee benefit services. These include public company reporting and executive compensation, employee benefits in mergers and acquisitions, qualified retirement plans and Title I investment advice, health and welfare benefit plans, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and international human resources matters. And driven by a volatile labor market, we are partnering with clients to innovate plan structure and design, including cutting-edge services such as private exchange medical benefits, employee benefits in captive insurance, and fiduciary governance best practices. With decades of experience, our EBEC team maintains strong brand recognition, with clients describing our attorneys as “superb,” “very client-friendly,” “extremely responsive and able to bring forth the right resources,” and “having an “incredible breadth of knowledge.”
Practice Area
Our Labor & Employment Practice is one of the largest and most experienced practices among the country’s multi-disciplined law firms. Our attorneys represent global employers of all types and sizes—ranging from the Fortune 100 to privately held startups—often serving as national, regional, or preferred counsel to many of these major employers.
Practice Area
Executive Compensation Plans & Agreements
Our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation (EBEC) attorneys generally focus on two separate but related areas—employee benefits and executive compensation. We advise corporations, boards of directors, private equity firms, and executives on all legal, design, drafting, negotiation, and compliance aspects of executive compensation matters. We advise corporations, firms, fiduciaries, executives, administrators, governmental entities, and financial institutions on innovative and traditional employee retirement and health and welfare benefits programs. Our substantial experience and over 50 years of involvement in the EBEC field have given us a deep understanding of the evolution of benefits law and the market for executive compensation.
Experience 28 results
Experience
|March 31, 2025
Experience
|June 13, 2024
Winston advises Ardian on its acquisition of a majority stake in Alstef Group
Experience
|May 1, 2024
Winston Represented S&S Automotive in its Sale to Lawson Products
Insights & News 1,587 results
Webinar
|June 18, 2025
EBEC for Public Companies: Optimizing Strategy & Tactics
As market conditions evolve, executive compensation and employee benefits have moved from routine HR matters to critical components of corporate strategy. Today, these programs directly influence investor confidence and long-term market positioning.
Recognitions
|June 5, 2025
|1 Min Read
Winston & Strawn Recognized in Chambers USA 2025
Chambers USA 2025 ranked Winston & Strawn as a leading law firm in 60 categories. Chambers & Partners is a prominent UK-based publishing organization that ranks lawyers and law firms based on robust editorial research and direct conversations with lawyers and clients.
Capital Markets & Securities Law Watch
|June 2, 2025
|4 Min Read
New SEC Guidance: Asset-Backed Securities
On May 16, 2025, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued new and revised Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (C&DIs) regarding public utility securitizations. These C&DIs were issued following a no-action letter issued to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association that clarified certain ambiguities related to Rule 192 under the Securities Act of 1933, the securitization conflicts-of-interest rule.
Other Results 35 results
Law Glossary
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is a federal law from 1974 that governs how employers provide benefit plans to employees. ERISA is administered in part by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Labor. The law establishes requirements and guidelines for employers and benefit plan managers, trustees and certain other service providers. ERISA ensures minimum standards are set for the majority of private industry pension and health plans, as well as other benefit plans such as life insurance. Under ERISA, employees must be notified of benefit plan terms, including funding, coverage, and costs. Employees are also offered protections against fiduciary wrongdoing. Plan participants or the DOL may be able to sue plan fiduciaries if plans are mismanaged or if plan fiduciaries engage in conduct prohibited under ERISA, and plan participants may sue for unpaid benefits.
Law Glossary
What Is Performance-Based Compensation?
Performance-based compensation (PBC) is a system for rewarding employees financially, outside of their regular salaries. The financial compensation is based on how individual employees, departments, the company, or the company’s stock price performs during a specific time frame and in accordance with pre-determined goals set by the organization. These programs may also be called Pay-For-Performance systems. Companies who utilize these systems must be prepared to define and track performance, as well as provide compensation, such as bonuses, when objectives are met according to benchmarks. The supplemental income will also have tax implications for employees.
Law Glossary
What Is Workplace Privacy Law?
Workplace privacy law involves the legal questions that arise as employers monitor their employees’ activities. Companies may monitor through visual surveillance, such as cameras, and electronic surveillance, and email audits. Businesses monitor to protect confidential information and to help prevent behavioral violations. Employers have broad rights to copy and monitor email sent over company electronic systems and to view these emails as business property. Emails can be monitored based on a number of business principles, including to encourage productivity and discourage illegal activity. Regarding surveillance, employees are allowed reasonable expectations of privacy in areas such as bathrooms. Legal issues may arise when hidden cameras are placed in work areas where employees are not aware of the surveillance.