ESOP Documentation

ESOP documentation is the layer that sits below the broader scheme and makes individual grants legally binding. Our team prepares the grant letters that set out each employee’s options, the exercise price, the vesting schedule, and the conditions attached, drafted so an employee understands exactly what they hold and a future investor sees exactly what is committed. We prepare the option agreements, the board and committee approvals that authorise each grant, and the trust or direct-allotment structure where one is used.

The detail matters more than founders expect. Cliffs and vesting periods must be unambiguous. Treatment of options on resignation, termination for cause, death, disability, and a change of control must be spelled out, because every one of these scenarios eventually arrives for someone. The exercise mechanics, the lapse of unexercised options, and the buy-back or cashless-exercise provisions all need to be precise. Law Mahaguru drafts each of these so that, whatever happens to an employee, the answer is already in writing rather than negotiated in a crisis.

We also keep the ESOP register and the connected records current, reconciled with the cap table, so that the pool size, the grants made, the options vested, and the shares actually issued always tie out. This is exactly what an investor’s counsel tests during diligence, and a clean ESOP record has repeatedly helped our clients sail through a stage where messy documentation drags others into renegotiation.

Our clients include startups formalising grants they made informally in the early days, growing companies expanding their option pool, and teams cleaning up their equity records ahead of a raise. In each case we make the documentation match the promise, and the promise match the law.

Equity is one of the most powerful tools a company has to attract and keep talent, but only if the paperwork makes it real. Law Mahaguru gives your ESOP the documentary backbone it needs. Tell us about the grants you have made or intend to make, and we will document them so they stand up when it counts.