About the Author

Picture of Darren Sommers

Darren Sommers

Darren specialises in providing general commercial legal advice and specialist technology law advice to clients in the IT industry and other technology industries. In addition to his law degree, Darren has both an honours degree in Science and a Master of Information Technology. Darren has previously worked as a software developer and business analyst for leading multi-national companies. Darren’s vocational experience in IT assists in providing his clients with practical and well targeted legal advice.

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ESOPs and Overseas Employees: Why Multi-National Share Plans Become Expensive for Australian Companies

For Australian companies, an ESOP, employee share scheme or share plan can be a great way to attract and retain staff by giving them a future stake in the business. But the position becomes much more complicated when the company wants to offer options to employees based overseas. What looks like a simple extension of an Australian employee share option plan can quickly become an expensive and time-consuming compliance exercise. Once you move into the world of multi-national share plans or global share plans, you are no longer just dealing

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Three business professionals reviewing employee share option plan documents and ESOP compliance requirements on a tablet to avoid out-of-date ESOP risks

The Dangers of Out-Of-Date ESOPs

Employee equity can be a powerful part of your remuneration strategy. But once a plan is in place, it’s easy for compliance to slip as the business grows and circumstances change.  Many businesses tend to set and forget their plan rules and do not review them regularly. An out of date employee share option plan (ESOP) could become a laden tax trap for your employees.  It could also cause a reporting nightmare for the business as you fail to continue to monitor the tax treatment of options/shares issued under plan,

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Aerial view of Melbourne CBD skyline and Yarra River, representing Adventum Legal's location and service area for Australian business law

Welcome to Adventum Legal!

After many years of being asked by clients – “when are you starting your own thing” I decided to take the plunge. It wasn’t an easy decision, I’ve been very happy in the firms I’ve worked with. But like my entrepreneurial clients I’ve always had an inner drive to create my own startup. So I created Adventum Legal. Adventum means “Adventure” in Latin. Why “adventure”? Well everyone who creates their own business embarks on their own journey and I am no different. But this firm isn’t really a startup. As

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