Comment on Skype CEO, not investors, made the key cuts by Skype Insider

To those who say that Skype employees should have sought legal advice - a few comments in response - Skype employees have a stock option agreement and a stock option plan. The stock option plan, in turn, contains a “blink and you missed it” reference to a third document, a Partnership Agreement in the Cayman Islands, the jurisdiction where the stock options are actually held. That means to obtain competent legal advice, a typical employee would need to retain lawyers in both their home state and in the Caymans. Then they would need to retain a lawyer in New York because Skype chose New York state law to apply to many provisions (nb: strangely, Skype has no employees in New York and claims, for regulatory purposes, not to even “do business” there). Q - Do we really expect this kind of massive “lawyering up” from new employees? - These were not negotiated agreements. Employees were induced to join Skype with promises of stock options, and then, after leaving their other jobs behind, were instructed to sign these convoluted agreements - Take it or leave it. - It is very revealing that Skype, unlike every other tech company, chose not to furnish its rank and file employees with a “Q&A;” overview or summary of key provisions of its stock option plan. They knew they were engaged in a deception and decided to keep it dark. - No amount of lawyering should be able to take away the common-sense and "legal" definition of vested. From Black's law dictionary "vested " means "having become a completed, consummated right for present or future enjoyment, not contingent, unconditional, absolute." - Finally Skype/Silver Lake have not successfully cheated anyone out of their vested options yet. This won't be over for a long time....

Comment on Skype CEO, not investors, made the key cuts by Skype Insider

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/2011/06/20/skype-ceo-not-investors-made-the-key-cuts/#comment-634029