The Walt Disney Co. trimmed its longtime normal counsel’s pay package deal by roughly 34% final 12 months because the media large made cutbacks on account of the coronavirus pandemic.
Disney, which this month elevated international deputy chief compliance counsel Alicia Schwarz to senior vice chairman and chief compliance officer, disclosed the full compensation of its high six executives in an annual proxy assertion filed this week.
These people embody senior govt vice chairman, normal counsel, and company secretary Alan Braverman, whose complete pay final 12 months dropped to $9.2 million, together with almost $1.6 million in cash and nearly $6.9 million in stock awards. Braverman earned greater than $13.7 million from Disney in 2019.
Regardless of the dip in complete compensation, Braverman offered off a sizeable quantity of Disney stock final 12 months—almost $22.9 million worth of his holdings within the firm, in line with securities filings. Bloomberg information exhibits that Braverman at the moment owns nearly $19.1 million in Disney stock.
Braverman and different executives in Disney’s C-suite agreed to take 30% cuts to their base salaries in 2020 as Covid-19 roiled the worldwide economic system. Braverman, who’s perennially one of many highest-paid legislation division leaders within the U.S., and people high Disney executives obtained no bonuses final 12 months.
In September, Disney introduced it will lay off 28,000 employees as the corporate sought to offset shrinking revenues from shuttered film theaters and a resorts enterprise scuffling with fewer guests.
Disney is now led by Chief Govt Officer Robert Chapek, who took over final 12 months from Robert Iger, a longtime chief of the Burbank, Calif.-based leisure titan. Disney’s most up-to-date proxy states that Braverman is now within the closing 12 months of his employment settlement, which is about to run out Dec. 31, 2021.
Braverman didn’t reply to a request for remark about his potential post-Disney plans, succession planning for the authorized chief place, or promotion of Schwarz to compliance chief.
Schwarz, who co-chairs the Disney Legal professionals of Colour affinity group, disclosed on her LinkedIn profile this month her new position and touted a number of job openings on her authorized and compliance staff on the firm in Burbank, London, and Washington. Schwarz didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Disney employed Schwarz as a principal counsel in 2014 from Hughes Hubbard & Reed in Washington, the place she spent 5 years as an affiliate dealing with anti-corruption, company compliance, worldwide commerce, and inner investigations work. She was promoted to assistant normal counsel in 2018.
Jacob “Jack” Yellin, a veteran in-house lawyer at Disney who has served as a senior vice chairman, affiliate normal counsel, and compliance chief since 2011, didn’t reply to a request for remark about his standing with the corporate. Disney media representatives didn’t reply to requests for remark concerning the change within the compliance chief position or Braverman’s future employment standing.
Sweet Lawson, a former London-based group chief compliance officer at Disney, left the corporate final 12 months to turn into compliance chief and senior deputy normal counsel at Comcast Corp. Lawson joined Disney in 2019 as a part of its $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox Inc.’s leisure property.
