Ask HN: Advice after a stock option mess at a unicorn?
2 comments
I hope you get some great free advice, but odds are that this situation is incredibly complicated and involves a lot of details we don't have access to and some very complicated laws and contracts. Odds are that the only good answer anybody here will be able to tell you is "Go and find the best attorney in a big firm that you can find who has experience in this domain who can clearly spell out your options and give you the best possible advice. If this is about life-changing money, spending a few thousand bucks on professional counsel will be worth it for this situation."
You need a contract lawyer ASAP. Sorry this isn't helpful but it's probably the only good advice.
* Did an inter-company transfer to the US before those 4 years were up, and these >200k EMI options kept "vesting" to completion while I was in the US on Carta
* During that same time period, I was also being issued new ISO options grants (meaning that the responsible people in the company could see I was in the US, could not be issued EMI, had to be issued ISO, but that I was also "vesting" an EMI grant)
* I asked about exercising the >200k options that I thought were fully vested, was told that I should have been made to exercise what had vested and had the remainder reissued as ISO when I transferred to the US (there was no communication about this at the time and no reference to it on my transfer-related contracts)
* One idea that has been floated to me is reissuing the post-transfer options (slightly more than half of the >200k) at the current strike price, which is significantly higher and will require a six-figure sum to exercise (vs a few hundred dollars)
* Company is now a unicorn, private and with no immediate plans that anyone knows of to sell or IPO
* I am now a US LPR, still employed by the same company
Has anyone been in a similar situation before? Known someone who has been in a similar situation? Has knowledge of the law(s) surrounding situations like this? Any advice on how to approach this situation is welcome.
[1]: https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes/enterprise-management-incentives-emis