RELATED PARTIES |
9 Months Ended |
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Sep. 30, 2023 | |
| Related Party Transactions [Abstract] | |
| RELATED PARTIES | RELATED PARTIESDuring the year ended December 31, 2019, the Company's former President and Chief Executive Officer, 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 September 30, 2023, Mona Jr. has 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 September 30, 2023. 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 of the RSU's previously issued to Mona Jr. vested. 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 was 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 was $0.2 million and was recorded as a component of selling, general and administrative expenses during 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. 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 through 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 expense and other on the condensed balance sheet. The deadline to file and pay personal income taxes for 2019 was on October 15, 2020. To date, notwithstanding repeated requests from the Company, 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 would have been relieved once the tax amount was paid by Mona Jr. and the Company had received the required taxing authority documentation from Mona Jr. If the tax amount was not paid by Mona Jr., the Company could have been liable for such withholding tax due. On April 15, 2023, the statute of limitations for federal payroll tax withholding expired. In addition, the statute of limitations for the state tax withholding expired during the three months ended March 31, 2023. As a result of the expiration of the relevant statutes of limitations, neither the IRS nor the State of California have the rights to assess and collect the $6.2 million of income taxes from the Company and the Company has made a change in accounting estimate and no longer expects to incur a loss with respect to this matter. As a result, the Company derecognized the contingent liability of $6.2 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2023. The remaining accrued amount of $0.5 million that the Company may still be liable for relates to employer and employee Medicare portion of FICA taxes for which the related statute of limitations has not yet expired.
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