How much compensation does Teva Pharmaceuticals pay ceo Jeremy Levin and his executive team? Only their accountants – and a few select insiders – know for sure. Why? The drugmaker claims to adhere to Israeli law, which permits companies with dual stock exchange listings to report these salaries on a group basis, rather than disclose individual sums. However, a pair of Israeli academics, who are also Teva shareholders, are challenging the practice, which the generic drugmaker adopted in 2000, and filed a lawsuit seeking class action status. In their view, Teva is failing to meet basic disclosure requirements and doing shareholders a disservice (here is the lawsuit, although it helps if you read Hebrew). “The result is inconceivable,” Sharon Hannes, a law professor at Tel Aviv University, and Ehud Kamar, who is a law professor at the University of Southern California, write in their complaint. “All US companies and companies traded in Israel give a breakdown of compensation to their senior officers on an individual basis. But Teva, followed by other Israeli dual-listed companies, conceal this information” As noted by Ha’aretz, which first reported their complaint, US law requires information about executive and director pay from domestic and foreign companies that issue securities, but with one exception: compensation can be disclosed on a group basis when laws of a home country do not require reporting on an individual basis.
