Public companies have until Dec. 1 to update or add new clawback provisions to their executive pay policies in order to comply with regulations the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized last year.

Clawback provisions are an increasingly common feature of executive compensation packages, according to Anne Tyler Hall, an attorney with Hall Benefits Law in Atlanta. Their purpose is to enable companies to recover incentive pay if an executive's decisions turn out to be ethically and legally questionable, thus imposing financial and reputational liabilities on the company. READ MORE