RELATED PARTIES |
12 Months Ended |
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Dec. 31, 2022 | |
| Related Party Transactions [Abstract] | |
| RELATED PARTIES | RELATED PARTIES During the year ended December 31, 2019, the Company's former President and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Mona Jr. ("Mona Jr."), and the Company entered into a Settlement Agreement (the “Settlement Agreement”), pursuant to which the Company agreed that Mona Jr.’s resignation from the Company on January 22, 2019 was for Good Reason (as defined in Mona Jr.’s Employment Agreement) and agreed to extend the deadline for Mona Jr.’s exercise of his stock options for a period of five years. As of December 31, 2022, Mona Jr. had 11,300,000 fully vested outstanding stock options with a weighted average exercise price of $0.42 per share. In exchange, Mona Jr. agreed that notwithstanding the terms of his Employment Agreement providing for acceleration of vesting of all stock options and RSU's upon a Good Reason resignation, certain of his unvested stock options would not immediately vest, but rather continue to vest if, and only if, certain Company milestones are achieved related to the Company’s drug development efforts. These stock options were issued in July 2016 (6,000,000 options) and March 2017 (5,000,000 options) and 6,750,000 of these stock options have not vested as of December 31, 2022. The Company and Mona Jr. also agreed to mutually release all claims arising out of and related to Mona Jr.’s resignation and separation from the Company. As a result of the Settlement Agreement, the Company recorded stock-based compensation expense related to the accelerated vesting of the RSU's of $5.1 million and the modification of certain stock options of $2.7 million during the year ended December 31, 2019.
As part of the Settlement Agreement, 2,950,000 vested RSU's were issued to Mona Jr. The vesting of the RSU's and payment of shares is treated as taxable compensation to Mona Jr. and thus subject to income tax withholdings. No amounts were withheld (either in cash or the equivalent of shares of common stock from the vesting of the RSU's) or included in the original Company’s payroll tax filing. The compensation is subject to Federal and State income tax withholding and Federal Insurance Contributions Act (“FICA”) taxes withholding estimated to be $6.4 million for the employee portions. The employer portion of the FICA taxes is $0.2 million and has been recorded as a component of selling, general and administrative expenses in the statement of operations for the year ended December 31, 2019. During the year ended December 31, 2020, the Company reported the taxable compensation associated with the RSU release to the taxing authorities and included the amount in Mona Jr.'s W-2 for 2019. In addition, the Company paid the employer and employee portion of the FICA taxes of $0.2 million, respectively. Although the primary tax liability is the responsibility of the employee, the Company is secondarily liable and thus has continued to reflect this liability on its balance sheet as of December 31, 2022 in an amount of $6.7 million, which was recorded as a component of accrued expenses. The Company initially recorded an offsetting receivable of $6.2 million during the second quarter of 2019 for the total estimated Federal and State income taxes which should have been withheld in addition to the employee portion of the FICA payroll taxes as the primary liability is ultimately the responsibility of the employee. The receivable was recorded as a component of prepaid expenses and other on the balance sheet. The deadline to file and pay personal income taxes for 2019 was on October 15, 2020. To date, Mona Jr. has not provided to the Company the appropriate documentation substantiating that he properly filed and paid his taxes for 2019. As a result, the Company derecognized its previously recorded receivable of $6.2 million during the fourth quarter of 2020. The associated liability may be relieved once the tax amount is paid by Mona Jr. and the Company has received the required taxing authority documentation from Mona Jr. If the tax amount is not paid by Mona Jr., the Company would be liable for such withholding tax due. Additionally, the Company could be subject to penalties if the amounts are ultimately not paid. The Company does not believe that any such penalties are probable or reasonably possible as of December 31, 2022.
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