Executive Compensation Solutions Chairman Alec Berkman said the NCUA should prepare for a fight if it attempts to take a broad interpretation of its right to repudiate the severance agreements of dismissed corporate executives. The Covina, Calif. based ECS counts both Western Corporate Federal Credit Union and U.S. Central Federal Credit Union as clients.

Berkman said it's his duty as a vendor of new CEOs Philip Perkins and Jim Nance to respectfully let them know they'll be challenged if they attempt to limit executive compensation packages as broadly as NCUA Executive Director David Marquis suggested he could in the NCUA's Monday webcast.

"I have concerns about what they said regarding the repudiation of severance packages, and how broad that might be," Berkman said. Specific concerns include whether or not the NCUA intends to deny severance pay from contracts signed in the early 1990s that are cumulative in structure, or even 457(f) deferred compensation plans.