AT&T Lawful Chief Observed Pay back Package Plunge, Gets Far Improved Information
AT&T Inc.’s legislation department chief David McAtee saw his once-a-year compensation return to prior stages in 2021, a calendar year in which the organization agreed to sell off its media belongings in a $43 billion offer as he fought most cancers.
McAtee received extra than $10.5 million in complete payment very last calendar year, according to a proxy filing this week by the Dallas-based mostly telecommunications firm. McAtee’s pay back package signifies a a lot more than 43% dip from the $18.6 million he gained throughout 2020, which provided a approximately $9 million fairness award.
That inventory reward wasn’t the initially that McAtee obtained in the ten years that he’s been at AT&T. The corporation awarded him a $5 million reward in 2018 for helping it fend off an antitrust obstacle to AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc.
AT&T’s most modern proxy states that McAtee was compensated nearly $4.2 million in cash—a $1.3 million base income and just about $2.9 million in non-fairness incentive program compensation—and received about $5.4 million in inventory awards past 12 months. The proxy also outlined additional than $800,000 in “other compensation” for McAtee, which AT&T disclosed in a footnote was for the “use of business aircraft.”
All those flights by McAtee were “taken for medical therapies,” AT&T said in the proxy. A spokesman explained McAtee is now in remission from most cancers and the enterprise expects him to make a entire recovery.
McAtee didn’t answer to a request for remark about his ordeal. AT&T hired the former Haynes and Boone spouse in 2012 to lead its worldwide litigation endeavours.
McAtee is the son of veteran Texas litigator David McAtee Sr., who was a associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and exclusive counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth. The elder McAtee is now of counsel at Dallas-dependent boutique Hedrick Kring Bailey.
The young McAtee took in excess of AT&T’s law department in 2015 upon the retirement of longtime lawful chief D. Wayne Watts. He subsequently performed a vital function advising on AT&T’s enlargement into mass media via the Time Warner offer. In 2018, McAtee assumed leadership of AT&T’s federal government affairs purpose.
The Time Warner transaction was successfully unwound when AT&T, represented by Sullivan & Cromwell, agreed to offer what is now known as WarnerMedia LLC previous calendar year to Discovery Inc. The proposed $43 billion media merger is established to near in the 2nd quarter following U.S. antitrust regulators declined to block the blend in February.
Bloomberg Legislation claimed earlier this month that Discovery’s top rated in-house attorney, Bruce Campbell, noticed his fork out package deal increase 38% past yr as a final result of the company’s success in clinching the WarnerMedia deal.
AT&T’s 2021 proxy states that McAtee has responsibility for all authorized issues, like litigation, regulatory, and administrative issues “before several judicial and regulatory bodies,” as properly as professional agreements, labor contracts, and the order and sale of company belongings.
McAtee owns virtually $11 million in AT&T inventory, in accordance to Bloomberg info.
