The NASPP Blog

Everyone else is talking about Brexit (the vote in the UK to leave the EU), why should the NASPP Blog be left out of the conversation? For today’s entry, I discuss what Brexit might mean for your stock plans.

Don’t Panic—Yet

The good news is that the vote is advisory, so it isn’t as if the UK has immediately exited the EU. They are still part of the EU for the short-term. The UK government and the EU have to come to an agreement about how the exit plan will work and various experts have indicated that this could take two years or more.

How Will Stock Plans Be Impacted?

By now, we are all too familiar with the EU Directives that impact stock compensation.  While the Directives are complicated enough, in and of themselves, if the UK leaves the EU, things could get a lot more complicated. The UK will have it’s own rules that may or may not be the same as the rules in the Directives. A recent alert by Baker & McKenzie summaries a number of areas in which stock compensation offered to employees in the UK could be affected.

• Securities Laws: The EU Prospectus Directive (including both the filing requirement and exemptions) will no longer apply in the UK.  This could turn out to be better or worse than the way things are now: the UK could require companies offering stock compensation to file a prospectus (probably worse), could provide an exemption for stock plans (probably the same as now for many companies, depending on the requirements for exemption), or could recognize prospectuses filed in the EU (or even in countries outside of the EU, such as the United States) (the same or better).
• Data Privacy: The EU Data Privacy Directive would also no longer apply in the UK. The EU has proposed new rules for this directive, so right now, we don’t know what the final rules will be for any countries in the EU, much less the UK.  But once the UK has left the EU, they can determine their own rules; maybe these rules would be similar to the rules that the EU adopts, maybe not.  One bit of good news is that Baker & McKenzie notes that “It would be surprising … if the UK would not consider consent to be a valid ground to collect, process and transfer personal data.” Since that is how most companies comply with the EU Data Privacy Directive for their stock plans, little may change here.
• Discrimination:  There are a number of EU Directives that prohibit discrimination against specified groups of employees. Those Directives would also no longer apply in the UK, but the UK would be free to adopt its own rules on discrimination.  Baker & McKenzie notes that they do not expect to see substantial changes here.

Social Insurance, Too

An alert by EY notes that Brexit may also impact the social insurance obligations of mobile employees, their employers’ compliance obligations, and the benefits mobile employees are entitled to. Currently, the EU governs how social insurance applies when employees move between countries in the EU. Unless the UK comes to an agreement with the EU that the EU rules still apply to employees moving between the UK and other EU countries, individual agreements would have to be put in place between the EU and all the EU countries. Some of these agreements exist, but they haven’t been updated since the EU established its rules. Many have expired or don’t address how mobility works in today’s world. This could get ugly.

What About Companies that Don’t Have Stock Plan Participants in the UK?

For those companies, there shouldn’t be any direct impact to their stock plans (other than the impact of stock price volatility resulting from the economic uncertainty caused by Brexit). But, if you are a US-based company with a multi-national stock plan, chances are that you have stock plan participants in the UK. In the NASPP/PwC Global Equity Incentives Survey, the UK is second only to the US in terms of countries where respondents have employees and offer stock compensation.

More to Come

I’m sure there will be more implications to think about as the UK’s exit looms closer.  At this year’s NASPP Conference, our perennially popular session, “Around the World in 60 Minutes: Key International Updates” will most certainly have a lot to say about Brexit, as will the session “Making Sense of Europe.” Be sure to attend one or both of these sessions so you are up-to-date on how your stock plan participants in the UK will be affected.

– Barbara