A major criticism of golden parachutes is that they entrench existing managers in their jobs by deterring takeovers. In that sense, they subsidize existing management at the expense of shareholders. When the golden parachute is eventually paid, it subsidizes the then departing managers at the expense of shareholders once again. A golden parachute might also constitute a reward for failure when management hastens to sell the company in the wake of a plummeting stock value.

To the extent that adoption of golden parachutes might signal future takeover bids, stock values might increase, benefiting shareholders. However, negative market reaction is even more likely, as golden parachutes often signal to shareholders that additional antitakeover measures will follow to prevent the eventual sale of the company.

Defenders of golden parachutes maintain that they guard the objectivity of management and allow it to best serve shareholder interests by providing an incentive to get top dollar in a sale or auction of the company, rather than protecting their own jobs. To that argument, critics respond that management has a preexisting fiduciary duty to serve shareholder interests and should not require an artificial incentive to live up to their obligations.

Critics also cite instances of “golden bungees,” where golden parachutes are abused. Rather than executives simply redeeming their golden parachutes when a change of control occurs, they also jump back into the company in a different position. For instance, when Washington Mutual acquired Providian Financial, Providian’s CEO returned as head of Washington Mutual’s credit card division while also receiving his golden parachute. Shareholders oppose this type of abuse and have urged a “double trigger” to control payouts, requiring termination of an executive’s employment to trigger the golden parachute.

In normal circumstances, golden parachutes are completely legal. In abnormal circumstances, however, there could be legal constraints. In a bankruptcy situation, for instance, judges have disallowed golden parachutes as legitimate administrative expenses, while allowing retention pay for a broader base of employees based on years of service.

Directors, especially members of board compensation committees, might be found liable for violating their duties of due care and good faith to shareholders if they exercise insufficient scrutiny of exorbitant severance pay or golden parachutes. Although Delaware Judge William B. Chandler III ruled that the Disney board did not violate its fiduciary duty in approving a severance package of over $100 million for Ovitz, who had been fired without cause, the case may have raised the bar for future board conduct. That the court even decided to hear the case indicated growing judicial concern over such pay packages. In his ruling, Judge Chandler acknowledged that the Disney board’s approval “fell significantly short of the best practices of ideal corporate governance.”

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 reformed accounting controls and oversight, while also mandating other changes in corporate governance, but it had no direct impact on golden parachutes or severance packages. In fact, by prohibiting loans to C-level executives, it might have indirectly created more pressure for lucrative severance packages.

There are three components of the internal revenue code that relate to golden parachutes. Section 4999 imposes a 20% excise tax, above and beyond the normal income tax, on “excess parachute payments,” while section 280G makes such payments nondeductible to the corporation. Congress passed these provisions as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. Denying deductibility to the corporation provides an incentive not to provide golden parachutes, and the imposition of an excise tax provides an incentive to the individual executive not to receive them. These provisions apply to the top 250 employees of the corporation, not just to the top executives. Finally, section 162(a) of the internal revenue code denies deductibility of any compensation in excess of $1 million unless it is performance based. Rewarding an underperforming executive with a lucrative golden parachute would trigger that provision.

While the goal of these provisions was to limit the use and amount of golden parachutes, that goal has not been realized. The impulse to both provide and receive golden parachutes persists. Corporations have even used tax gross-ups to circumvent sections 4999 and 280G and to pay all the taxes of recipient executives, thereby preserving their incentive to receive golden parachutes. Tax gross-ups are very costly to corporations, but they remain willing to pay them in order to provide the incentives of a golden parachute.

Corporate governance relates to golden parachutes similarly to the way in which it relates to other executive compensation issues and in the same way it relates to the various components of golden parachutes. The composition and practices of the board compensation committee are important, as are the roles of shareholders in pressing for reforms of executive compensation. Regulations surrounding stock options and restricted stock, often components of golden parachutes, are also important.

Even when CEOs or former CEOs who sit on the compensation committee of another CEO are considered independent, they often approve excessive severance packages and golden parachutes for their fellow CEOs. Hence, boards dominated by outside directors have adopted golden parachutes even more frequently than insider-dominated boards. Studies of social networking also reveal that CEOs with some connection to members of the compensation committee receive larger packages than those lacking such connections.

When compensation committees do exercise some restraint on pay packages, they do so partly by hiring a pay consultant rather than leaving that up to the CEO. More than half of all Fortune 250 corporations follow that practice.

Although board directors may adopt golden parachute provisions without shareholder approval, shareholders are exercising downward pressure on golden parachutes in three ways. First, statutory stock options, often a component of such parachutes, require shareholder approval within 12 months of action by the board of directors. Second, shareholder activists sponsor resolutions that call for acceptable levels of benefits. For example, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System has sponsored proposals calling for shareholder approval of severance packages in excess of 2.99 times the sum of an executive’s base salary and bonus. Shareholder resolutions on golden parachutes are among the issues that have garnered the highest percentage of majority shareholder votes, and golden parachutes are among the business practices that correlate most heavily to negative shareholder value. Third, shareholders have withheld votes for directors who sit on compensation committees that grant large severance packages, pensions, or golden parachutes. At Pfizer, for instance, some pension funds and other institutional investors withheld votes for the four directors in 2006 who sat on the compensation committee that approved of the CEO’s pension. Such shareholder activism, over time, may reduce the scope and incidence of golden parachute payouts to top corporate executives.