Stephanie Schroepfer

Houston, TX

Stephanie Schroepfer, Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP in Houston, Texas, has over 30 years of experience working exclusively in employee benefits and executive compensation matters.

Stephanie regularly advises plan sponsors concerning large, complex qualified retirement plans with multiple benefit structures. Stephanie provides assistance concerning the design, crafting, documentation, establishment and ongoing compliance of tax qualified retirement plans of all forms, including hybrid defined pension plans, traditional final average pay pension plans, and defined contribution plans of all forms, including qualified cash or deferred arrangements. Stephanie partners with plan sponsors and their actuaries and other professional advisors concerning design, crafting, documentation and ongoing compliance matters relating to retirement plans. She has extensive experience dealing with complex discrimination testing issues.

Stephanie regularly works with plan sponsors concerning the design, documentation, implementation and maintenance of welfare benefit programs of all forms. She regularly advises companies concerning compliance obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), the Internal Revenue Code, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the Affordable Care Act with respect to their welfare programs.
Stephanie regularly advises plan sponsors and their benefits committees and boards of directors concerning ERISA fiduciary obligations and risk mitigation in connection with benefit plan matters.

Stephanie’s clients include publicly traded and private corporations in various industries, including energy, power, mining, medicine, retail, technology, transportation and manufacturing, education. She also represents governmental entities and churches.

Stephanie regularly advises companies and compensation committees concerning all forms of equity-based and cash-based short-term and long-term incentive compensation and nonqualified deferred compensation. Taking into account federal tax issues under sections 409A and 280G of the Internal Revenue Code, accounting and institutional stockholder considerations, she regularly designs, crafts and documents long-term short-term incentive plans and award agreements. Stephanie works closely with sponsors’ independent compensation consultants concerning executive compensation design matters. She regularly advises companies concerning securities law reporting matters, and helps craft compensation and discussion analysis provisions of proxy statements. She advises companies concerning Dodd-Frank claw-back policies.

Stephanie has significant experience handling employee benefits, executive compensation and ERISA issues in complex transactions involving M&A transactions, leasings, spin-offs, and joint ventures. She regularly works on cross-border transactions with international offices of Norton Rose Fulbright. Stephanie regularly represents both buyers and sellers concerning the employee benefits and executive compensation issues (including in transactions valued in several billions of dollars) in corporate M&A transactions. Following the consummation of M&A transactions, she regularly assists buyers in integrating new employee benefit plans into the buyers’ controlled groups.

Stephanie regularly represents companies before the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation concerning ERISA fiduciary, tax compliance resolution, plan termination, funding and ERISA reporting matters concerning all forms of employee benefit programs. She regularly advises clients concerning corrections of retirement plan operational defects under Internal Revenue Service compliance programs.

Stephanie earned JD from The University of Texas, and BA, from Rice University.