participate in our broad-based employee benefit plans, as may be adopted from time to time, subject to the eligibility requirements of such employee benefit plans. The Guinta Offer Letter also contains certain restrictive covenants, including (a) non-competition and non-solicitation covenants that are applicable during Mr. Guinta’s term of employment, and for twelve months following his resignation or termination of his employment for cause (as defined below) and (b) restrictions on disclosure of confidential information.
Shin Offer Letter. On December 3, 2019, NFE Management, LLC entered into an offer letter (the “Shin Offer Letter”) with Ms. Shin. The Shin Offer Letter provides Ms. Shin with an annualized base salary of $200,000, eligibility to receive a discretionary bonus and eligibility to participate in our broad-based employee benefit plans, as may be adopted from time to time, subject to the eligibility requirements of such employee benefit plans. The Shin Offer Letter also contains certain restrictive covenants, including (a) non-competition and non-solicitation covenants that are applicable during Ms. Shin’s term of employment, and for twelve months following her resignation or termination of her employment for cause (as defined below) and (b) restrictions on disclosure of confidential information.
As used in the Guinta Offer Letter and the Shin Offer Letter, “cause” generally means the executive’s (i) willful misconduct or gross negligence in the performance of his or her duties; (ii) failure to perform his or her duties or to follow the lawful directives of our Board; (iii) commission of, indictment for, conviction of, or pleading of guilty or nolo contendere to, a felony or any crime involving moral turpitude; (iv) failure to cooperate in any audit or investigation of the business or financial practices of any member of NFE Management, LLC or any of its affiliates or any facility managed by any of the foregoing entities (collectively, the “Company Group”); (v) performance of any material act of theft, embezzlement, fraud, malfeasance, dishonesty or misappropriation of the property of any member of the Company Group; or (vi) breach of the applicable offer letter or any other agreement with a member of the Company Group, including (without limitation), a violation of the code of conduct or other written policy of any such entity. Ms. Shin’s breach of any restrictive covenant would also constitute “cause” under the Shin Offer Letter.
Tax Considerations
As a general matter, our Compensation Committee considers the various tax and accounting implications of our existing and proposed compensation programs. We consider the tax-deductibility of compensation in designing our compensation programs, but it is not our sole consideration and we retain the discretion to award compensation that is non-deductible. In addition, due to U.S. tax reform legislation (as described below), the opportunity to design programs on a go-forward basis that are fully tax-deductible for our named executive officers has effectively been eliminated. Therefore, the tax-deductibility of compensation had less of an impact on the design of our compensation programs in 2021, and we expect that tax-deductibility will continue to have less of an impact on our program design in the future.
Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (together with the Treasury Regulations thereunder, the “Code”) generally disallows deductions for compensation paid to certain members of senior management in excess of $1 million per year. Historically, this deduction limitation did not apply to “performance-based” compensation as described in the regulations under Section 162(m). However, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted on December 22, 2017, substantially modified Section 162(m) and, among other things, eliminated the performance-based exception to the $1 million deduction limit effective as of January 1, 2018. As a result, compensation paid to our named executive officers who are “covered employees” under Code Section 162(m) in excess of $1 million is generally nondeductible, whether or not it is performance-based. In addition, our “covered employees” under Code Section 162(m) include any individual who serves as our CEO or CFO at any time during the fiscal year and our three next most highly compensated officers (other than our CEO and CFO) for the fiscal year, and once an individual becomes a “covered employee,” that individual remains a “covered employee” for all future fiscal years, including following any termination of employment.
Hedging and Pledging Policy
Subject to certain exceptions, our insider trading policy expressly prohibits transactions involving hedging, margining or pledging of shares of our common stock and other equity securities and derivatives by officers, directors and employees of the Company (“Insiders”), as well as any such Insider’s spouse, minor children, adult family members sharing the same household on a continuous basis, financial dependents, and any other person or entity over whom the Insider exercises substantial influence or control over his, her or its securities trading decisions, and any other trust or other estate in which an Insider has a substantial beneficial interest or as to which he or she serves as trustee or in a similar capacity.