The Government draft law on virtual general meetings is on the home straight. At the Mittwoch, 22.6.2022 finds a hearing in the BT Judiciary Committee instead of. Adoption in the German Bundestag is planned for the first week of July. It’s moving fast, that’s the good news. The bad news is that the bill isn’t good. According to his concept, the virtual HV something like a big video conference. That may be fine for smaller stock corporations, but especially for those listed on the stock exchange AG this is inappropriate. Handling video posts and questions from around the world is likely to be legally and technically overwhelming for most societies. Then they would rather be content with the manageable number of physically present shareholders (who by no means represent the shareholders), with experience one is on the safe side. The conventional hall presence HV becomes unattractive in the design of the virtual one HV remain the means of choice. The hall is because of „direct personal contact with the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board” (BVI-StellungnahmeS. 2) is superior to the virtual format per se, it is sometimes said. In any case, in the case of a large presence HV, this imagined contact only exists in the view from the row of chairs at the podium.
How did it get there? The reference draft of BMJ hasn’t tried that yet HV not as a singular and lengthy daily event, but to be carefully structured as a process (preliminary thought). This means organizing the information about the resolution items before the AGM day, which includes in particular the questions from the group of shareholders. Interested circles raised all sorts of concerns, which led to the syncretism of the RegE, which combines elements of the apron with the customs of the face-to-face AGM. This ends up with a kind of double right to ask questions, i.e. an extension. A tightening of the HV is not achieved in this way, which further reduces their attractiveness and runs counter to the interests of shareholders. A short crisp HV about 2 Hours that form the conclusion of a previous communication process would be given to each other. According to the federal government’s draft law, however, the virtual HV just as monstrous as the conventional ones.
Hinweis: Am 28.6.2022 a lecture and discussion event will take place at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, see here.