Alphabet Ties More of CEO Sundar Pichai's Pay to His Performance in New Equity Award

Google-parent Alphabet said on Wednesday it had approved a new equity award for Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai that ties more of his pay to performance.

The board recognizes Pichai's "strong performance" as CEO, the company said, adding that the vesting of a significant portion of the award would depend on Alphabet's total shareholder return relative to other S&P 100 companies.

Alphabet said the award was tweaked to increase the performance stock units (PSUs) to 60 percent from 43 percent in 2019, while increasing the performance requirement for the payout.

Pichai, who is given an equity award every three years, was granted two tranches of PSUs with a target value of USD 63 million (roughly Rs 520 crore) each.

The CEO was also given a grant of USD 84 million (Rs 694 crore) in the form of Alphabet's restricted stock units.

Meanwhile, Germany's cartel office said on Wednesday that it had concluded proceedings against Google over its online news service after the tech giant made several changes benefiting publishers.

The office said Google had abandoned plans to integrate the Google News Showcase into general searches and changed its contractual practice to make sure publishers do not face difficulties in asserting their ancillary copyright in response to its concerns. A publisher's participation in the News Showcase will continue not to affect search results, added the office.

The cartel office said Google would implement further measures in the coming weeks, including providing more information about Showcase, and that it would continue to monitor this development.

Under expanded powers that entered into force last year, the cartel office has taken up cases involving several tech giants, including Amazon, Apple and Facebook owner Meta.

© Thomson Reuters 2022