Richard S. Chargar

With a combination of business sense, market savvy, experience, and pragmatism, Richard Chargar provides sound guidance and develops effective strategies for complex executive compensation and employee benefits matters.

Private and public companies, C-suite executives, and boards of directors rely on Richard to provide succinct, clear, and practical advice when designing and administering employee benefit plans and executive compensation arrangements.

Past chair of the firm’s Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation group, Richard understands that executive compensation issues implicate both business and personal interests, which must be accounted for and addressed when negotiating and crafting compensation structures, employment agreements, and severance packages.

Similarly, he knows that prudent stewardship of benefit and retirement programs requires an appreciation of how underlying investment and management strategies will impact employers, employees, and strategic transactions.

In both aspects of his practice, Richard is a trusted counselor who helps his clients address daily questions and add long-term value.

Richard is involved in all aspects of executive compensation. Representing entities and high-ranking executives, he brings a 360-degree perspective that helps crystalize issues and facilitate creative solutions that work for all parties. He negotiates and prepares executive employment and severance agreements, deferred compensation programs, supplemental executive retirement plans, incentive arrangements, and equity-based compensation arrangements. For public companies, he routinely advises on corporate governance, regulatory reporting, and compliance matters related to executive compensation.

In his employee benefits practice, Richard counsels a wide variety of clients on the design, implementation, and administration of qualified retirement plans, including 401(k) plans, defined benefit plans, multi-employer plans, and collectively bargained pension plans, as well as welfare arrangements such as medical/dental/vision plans and cafeteria plans.

Richard also advises on fiduciary and plan asset matters, including prohibited transactions and unrelated business taxable income issues. He routinely counsels 401(k) plan investment committees on ERISA’s fiduciary standards for selecting and monitoring plan investment options, making him an invaluable asset for plan fiduciaries who count on him to help them fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities.

Richard is also skilled in advising on the employee benefits aspects of mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, spin-offs, and other corporate restructurings. He has counseled clients on challenges that range from the employee benefits provisions of purchase agreements and change of control and golden parachute matters to due diligence, the treatment of sellers’ plans, and the integration of acquired employees and plans into acquirers’ plans.