[oldalum]

Wilner provides little insight so we must await more facts. My guess, from what little we know, is that Stanford's lawyers did not anticipate the strategy Dawkins appears to have used in backloading his pay, and now they are trying to make up for it. In retrospect, the offset should have been calculated based on average yearly pay over the lifetime of the contract. But another possible avoidance tactic would be to add incentive clauses that are virtually guaranteed to be reached, so that the base salary is kept low--to counter this, would need to hold Stanford's money until actual total payment is received for each year. Tough to anticipate everything, but the backloading seems fairly straightforward to anticipate (at least with my hindsight bias!).

[oldalum]

Wilner provides little insight so we must await more facts. My guess, from what little we know, is that Stanford's lawyers did not anticipate the strategy Dawkins appears to have used in backloading his pay, and now they are trying to make up for it. In retrospect, the offset should have been calculated based on average yearly pay over the lifetime of the contract. But another possible avoidance tactic would be to add incentive clauses that are virtually guaranteed to be reached, so that the base salary is kept low--to counter this, would need to hold Stanford's money until actual total payment is received for each year. Tough to anticipate everything, but the backloading seems fairly straightforward to anticipate (at least with my hindsight bias!).