Fired for code of con­duct vi­o­la­tions, Ian Smith still grabbed a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar stock pack­age at Ver­tex — but the cash bonus was axed

Get­ting fired for vi­o­lat­ing the code of con­duct at Ver­tex doesn’t mean los­ing your most re­cent round of stock awards and op­tions in the fall­out. But you can kiss your an­nu­al bonus good­bye.

For­mer COO Ian Smith made head­lines in Jan­u­ary when Ver­tex showed him the door fol­low­ing some un­ac­cept­able — and un­ex­plained — “per­son­al be­hav­ior.” But he still qual­i­fied for a com­pen­sa­tion pack­age that amount­ed to $4.6 mil­lion for 2018, dri­ven large­ly by the stock pack­age in his com­pen­sa­tion.

Where Smith took a hit, though, was on the non-eq­ui­ty bonus he stood to gain for 2018. It was ze­ro, com­pared to $1.3 mil­lion for 2017. Smith had earned a pack­age that came to $5.7 mil­lion for 2017.

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