I have a problem with a previous company that I worked for with regards to expiring options and wondered if anyone here knew a good lawyer to talk to to see if it is worth pursuing?

Thanks for any help,

Steve

 

I'm surprised you still have options as an ex-employee - normally unvested ones fall away when you leave, and you'd have exercised them if they'd vested?

 

Yup - with Gordo on that one. If you left a company, then you normally have a certain time period after leaving (typically 30, 60, 90 days) to exercise any vested options. Any unvested ones just vapourise - and so will the vested ones if you don't exercise them within the alotted timeframe.

Can you give any more info on your situation / options?

DN

 

Company was in the bad books with the SEC so in my exit agreement all the options vested and the expiry period would be extended to list + 30 days.

The company is just sorting out its books and will relist shortly.

In the last month all my options expired as all stock options have a 'vest it or lose it' date.

Obviously in my opinion this should also have been extended (in fact I didn't know it hadn't been) as I couldn't sell the shares.

Steve

 

It's irrelevant whether or not you can sell the shares - the option is to purchase them or not.

I've had options in privately owned companies (pre-IPO) and had I decided to exercise them I would have ended up buying shares that had an unknown future value, once public, and almost no way of "trading" them prior to them floating. It made no difference to the time limits on the vesting or exercising and I can't see how, in your situation, it would either - your option is to BUY and has nothing to do with your ability to subsequently SELL...

IMHO of course, and may be wrong - but seems right!

DN

 

The company isn't privately owned just in a 'frozen' state so no option to purchase (or sell) options.

Steve

 

If by your comments you actually meant:

In the last month all my options expired as all stock options have a 'EXERCISE it or lose it' date.

Obviously in my opinion this should also have been extended (in fact I didn't know it hadn't been) as I couldn't BUY the shares.

...then I'd completely agree with you - and it should have also been extended in line with list+30.