Amazon Law Chief’s Pay Hits Nearly $18.2 Million on Stock Grants

Amazon.com Inc.‘s longtime legal chief earned nearly $18.2 million last fiscal year as he gained from the company’s practice of giving large stock grants to senior executives every other year.

David Zapolsky received the bulk of his total compensation in a stock award valued at nearly $17.9 million, along with $313,750 in base salary, according to a proxy statement filed Thursday.

The pay returns Zapolsky to a pay echelon he reached in fiscal 2020, when he earned $17.2 million in total compensation as Amazon saw demand for its services soar during the pandemic. Zapolsky earned $163,200 in fiscal 2021.

The retail and technology giant has leaned on Zapolsky during its union battles. The Amazon Labor Union a year ago won the right to represent 8,000 workers in New York but lost two subsequent votes in the state and a re-run contest in Alabama is too close to call.

Amazon has faced regulatory pushback over its alleged anti-unionization efforts, and Zapolsky issued an apology in 2020 after insulting a labor activist during a dispute over pandemic protocols.

Zapolsky, a former associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, spent 13 years at Amazon before he was promoted to general counsel in 2012. He succeeded Amazon’s first-ever legal chief, former Perkins Coie partner L. Michelle Wilson.

He had relocated from New York to Seattle in the mid-1990s, joining now-defunct Bogle & Gates as a partner before moving to Dorsey & Whitney.

Within the past year Zapolsky has sold off almost $8 million in company stock, securities filings show. He currently owns more than $8.5 million in Amazon stock, according to Bloomberg data.

Growing Business

Amazon has hired more than 100 lawyers within the past 15 months to work for the company and its various subsidiaries, according to Bloomberg data.

They include Lisa Vickery, a former partner at labor and employment-focused Fisher & Phillips, who is an employee relations principal at the company. Amazon also added Greenberg Traurig partner Kristen Ng as an Arlington, Virginia-based corporate counsel for US immigration.

In a statement last year about its pro bono work, Amazon said 700 lawyers and legal professionals in its law department were engaged in such efforts.

Amazon’s in-house ranks have also been raided by others.

Cameron Cohen, Nicholas Snow and Bhawna Sangwan left last year to take top legal jobs at Jack Dorsey’s digital payments platform Block Inc., blockchain company Polygon Labs, and Indian fintech startup Slice, respectively.

Rebecca “Becky” Marquez, most recently general counsel for Amazon-owned home security and products business Ring LLC, left in December to become legal chief for technology licensing company Xperi Inc.

Checkout.com Ltd., another payments processing company recently valued at $40 billion, last year hired Da-Wai Hu from Amazon to be its general counsel.

Outside Work

Amazon is also providing legal business to outside firms.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison advised Amazon on its bid to break into brick-and-mortar health care via its $3.5 billion buy of 1Life Healthcare Inc., the parent company of primary care provider One Medical. The deal closed in February after the Federal Trade Commission declined to challenge the merger.

Amazon turned to Cravath, Swaine & Moore in 2021 to handle its $8.5 billion acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

The deal, which closed that year, led Amazon to tap MGM executive Christopher Brearton to co-head the film studio in November. Brearton is a former partner at Latham & Watkins and O’Melveny & Myers.

Amazon, whose billionaire founder Jeff Bezos turned over leadership of the company in 2021 to its current CEO, Andrew Jassy, has also ramped up its lobbying efforts in Washington. Amazon is among several Big Tech giants facing antitrust scrutiny from US regulators.

The company has turned over nearly 50% of its US federal court caseload in the last five years to five firms: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Davis Wright Tremaine; Perkins Coie; Fenwick & West; and Littler Mendelson, per Bloomberg Law data.

Amazon’s board includes Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partner Jamie Gorelick, who chairs the law firm’s regulatory and government affairs department and co-chairs its crisis management and strategic response group. Gorelick owns nearly $10.8 million in Amazon stock, per Bloomberg data.