The Advisors' Blog

This blog features wisdom from respected compensation consultants and lawyers

November 10, 2015

Personal Use of Aircraft: Litigation Dismissed

Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com

Litigation over airplane use disclosure is so rare that I thought it was worth blogging about this. As noted in this Bloomberg article from April, Nordstrom was accused of hiding the costs of flying the family founders planes – the allegations was the corporate use of the company’s planes was being mixed with flying the family around. That case has now been dismissed as noted by Paul Hastings’ Mark Poerio on his site:

A Washington district court has dismissed Burbrink v. Campbell, which alleged false and misleading proxy statements had undervalued the Nordstrom family’s use of private aircraft. The company succeeded in establishing that independent directors had overseen the arrangements, and submitted an expert report substantiating its valuations. Executive usage of corporate aircraft remains a sensitive, complex practice.

However, it appears that an appeal was filed a few weeks ago…