Stock options plan como uma forma de remuneração flexível

Abstract

SILVA, A. G. Stock options plan as a form of flexible compensation. 2013. 149 f. Disertation (Master of Law) – Law School, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, 2013. The stock options plans are a kind of flexible compensation that offers stock options to the employees. These options ensure the right of the employee to choose whether to buy or not buy a delimited block of shares issued by the company that he works for, or by another company that belongs to the same economic group of the employer company, at the price that such shares had when the plan was proposed to the employee, which price is, in general, considerably lower than the value that the stock market assigns to the same shares at the moment of the strike of the option by the employee. Result of the current stage of economic development, the stock options plans seek to equalize the interests between employees and shareholders, directing the efforts of both parties towards the valorization of the company and, in return, all actors involved in the success of the company share the results of this joint commitment. Thus, these plans emerge as a way to compensate, to ensure the loyalty and to motivate the employees and also as a mechanism to increase the company's productivity and to reduce production costs. This ambivalence is achieved due to fact that the economic asset given to the employee as compensation for the work performed is backed by the company's shares. The central question of this dissertation is to reveal the legal nature of the employees` stock options. For that purpose, this dissertation analyzes: (i) the stock options existing in the capital market, distinguishing them from the shares that underlie such options; (ii) the structure of the stock option plans; and (iii) the compatibility between stock options arising from stock option plans and the essential elements of any salary compensation. With this subsidy, it can be demonstrated that the arguments repeatedly used to justify that the stock options do not have the legal nature of salary originate from the confusion that is made between the securities stock options and the shares that underlie such options. Finally, it can be concluded that the stock options offered to employees have the legal nature of salary, once they are given for free by the employer, as a retribution for the employment contract, without exposing the employee's salary to risks distinct from those inherent to any flexible compensation.