Skip to main content

David R. Lagasse

Member

[email protected]

+1.212.692.6743

Follow:
Share:

David has extensive experience handling executive compensation issues in mergers and acquisitions, venture capital investments, private equity financing, and other transactional contexts.

On behalf of buyers, sellers, and management teams, David drafts and negotiates the compensation and equity arrangements for senior-level executives that drive and reward performance. He is also skilled at structuring and implementing deferred compensation arrangements, performance bonus plans, option and restricted stock awards, synthetic equity plans and equity participation in limited liability companies, partnerships, and corporations. He is adept at structuring these arrangements to comply with the employment, corporate, tax, employee benefit, and securities law issues inherent in them.

He is also skilled at counseling clients and litigating with respect to a broad range of business issues, with an emphasis on employment law issues as they relate to business disputes and transactions. He assists corporate counsel and human resources personnel to develop strategies and documentation for handling sensitive employee situations.

Experience

  • Representing a large private equity fund in structuring the compensation and equity arrangements for the senior management team in its acquisition of an industrial materials manufacturer. 
  • Representing the senior management team of a marketing information services company in negotiating their employment and equity arrangements in connection with a private equity company’s acquisition.
  • Structuring and implementing a management incentive plan for an international manufacturer. 
  • Representing a public company in connection with modifying its outstanding performance equity awards to comply with Section 409A of the tax code. 
  • Representing a large not-for-profit organization in connection with the investigation of alleged misconduct by a high-level officer. 
  • Negotiating compensation arrangements for senior portfolio and strategy managers with various mutual, private equity, and hedge funds. 
  • Handling an internal investigation concerning alleged kickbacks to employees from a corporation’s vendors. 
  • Winning an arbitration to obtain purchase price adjustments for the principals of a corporation sold to a public company. 
  • Avoiding whistleblower claims from senior members of a manufacturer’s accounting department based on allegedly fraudulent accounting practices.  
  • Represented the Chief Operating Officer of a large telecommunications company in connection with a renewal and renegotiation of his employment agreement and equity awards.
  • Represented a wholesale retailer in connection with negotiating the equity awards granted to its CEO, including drafting and negotiating a restricted stock award, a non-qualified option award, two profit interest awards and multi-party put, call and pre-emption rights agreement.
  • Represented a wholesale retailer in connection with negotiating the equity awards granted to its CEO, including drafting and negotiating a restricted stock award, a non-qualified option award, two profit interest awards and multi-party put, call and pre-emption rights agreement
Read less

viewpoints

PE Funds May Be Liable For Portfolio Company Pension Liabilities

August 14, 2013 | Advisory | By Adam Gale, David Lagasse

A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit increases the risk that a private equity fund could be liable for its portfolio company’s unfunded pension liabilities. Additionally, one portfolio company could potentially become liable for the pension liabilities of a fund’s other portfolio companies.
Read more
Read less

News & Press

Press Release Thumbnail
NEW YORK – Mintz is pleased to announce that 18 attorneys have been named New York Metro Super Lawyers and 11 attorneys have been named New York Metro Rising Stars by Super Lawyers for 2023.
Press Release Thumbnail
17 Mintz attorneys have been named New York Metro Super Lawyers and nine Mintz attorneys have been named New York Metro Rising Stars by Super Lawyers for 2022.
Press Release Thumbnail
Best Lawyers named 85 Mintz attorneys to its 2018 list of The Best Lawyers in America. In addition, Mintz attorneys Matthew J. Gardella and Samuel M. Tony Starr were named “Lawyer of the Year” in their respective practice areas.
Mintz attorneys represented Seventh Generation, Inc. in its recent sale to Unilever. Based in Vermont, Seventh Generation is a pioneer in corporate responsibility and sustainable product innovations, including plant-based detergents and household cleaners.
Sixteen Mintz attorneys have been named New York Super Lawyers for 2016 and twelve have been named New York Rising Stars. The list will be published in a special advertising supplement in The New York Times Magazine and in a stand-alone magazine, New York Super Lawyers - Metro Edition.
Attorneys from Mintz represented Myriad Genetics, Inc. in its acquisition of Assurex Health, an informatics-based precision medicine company providing treatment decision support to health care providers for mental health patients.
Best Lawyers named 73 Mintz attorneys to its 2017 list of The Best Lawyers in America. Mintz attorneys selected for inclusion in this year’s list span 44 practice areas. 
Thirteen attorneys from Mintz have been named New York Super Lawyers for 2014 and eleven have been named New York Rising Stars. The list will be published in a special advertising supplement in The New York Times Magazine and in a stand-alone magazine, New York Super Lawyers - Metro Edition.
Read less

Events & Speaking

Recognition & Awards

  • Best Lawyers in America: Employment Law – Management, Litigation – Labor & Employment (2011 – 2021)

  • Included on the New York Super Lawyers: Employment & Labor List (2010 – 2023)

Read less