This study aims to examine the impact of compensation committee composition on excess management compensation and whether family-business characteristics alter the relationship between committee composition and excess compensation. To conduct this research, the compensation model developed by Core, Guay, Larcker (2008) is employed to calculate excess compensation, and companies trading in the Taiwan Stock Exchange are used as the sample. The results show that the ratio of compensation committee members having both professorship and professional credentialsis negatively associated with excess management compensation, indicatingthatrecruiting members of compensation committeewith higher professional qualifications helps mitigatefat-cat problems. In addition, this study demonstrates that family-business characteristics weaken the effect of professional level of the committee on reducing excess compensation.