U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michael Wiles approved a revised incentive program for key staffers with Ryan Kavanaugh‘s Relativity Media at a New York court hearing on Monday.
The judge also granted Relativity attorney Craig Wolfe’s request to keep the specific dollar amounts of the Key Employee Incentive Plan for 10 major employees placed under seal so that competitors can’t back into compensation information.
The salaries for these individuals, including the lucrative TV division’s Thomas Forman and Andrew Marcus, had not previously been disclosed, Wolfe noted.
Wiles agreed. “In the real world, people don’t publish their salaries,” the judge said. “In the real world, this is information that is considered confidential, commercial information.”
In a court filing on Sunday, Relativity chief restructuring officer Brian Kushner had responded to the concerns of the U.S. Trustee about the incentive plan.
Kushner promoted one person into the incentive program, Relativity Music President Robert Bowen. The studio now seeks $580,122 for the group of eight top execs — including President Tucker Tooley, Managing Director Carol Genis, CFO Andrew Matthews and COO Greg Shamo.
Company CEO and founder Ryan Kavanaugh is not included in the incentive program.
An additional $655,000 is set aside for Forman and Marcus, to be judged by a separate set of standards related to the performance of the TV division.
The bonuses for the 10 executives would amount to 7.6 percent of their annual salaries and are conditional on their remaining through the completion of the sale, Kushner said.