Legal Question in Securities Law in California

Re: Employee Stock Options

Without reading the stock option offer to which Exhibit "B" is supposed to be appended, I can only guess at to the nature and enforceability of the stock option offer.

Here, then, is my guess: The paper you and the other employees have been given is not a stock option. It is only a promise to create a stock option plan in the future, and although there is probably sufficient consideration given by the prospective grantees (the employees) to make it an enforceable contract, what an employee could obtain by attempting to enforce it now would be somewhat uncertain and would probably depend upon

the promises it makes, the dollar value of the option at the time the promises should have been kept, and whatever else it really promises rather than equivocally hints at.

Nevertheless, as a probable element of the compensation package, the employees who have been promised something have earned the right to insist on the options, or at least, equivalent value.

One possibility would be for the affected employees to form an informal committee, then choose someone to be its spokesperson to press management for a resolution to the impasse. The spokesperson maybe ought be someone who was thinking of resigning anyway, since badgering the boss over unkept promises can be a career-stopper.