The updated Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD) aims to encourage shareholder engagement in listed companies in Europe and improve the transparency of related processes, including proxy voting.
The update adds requirements related to director remuneration, identifying shareholders, facilitating the exercise of shareholder rights, transmitting information, and providing transparency for institutional investors, asset managers, and proxy advisors.
The clock is ticking as the majority of the updated directive will be translated into national law by individual European member states by June 2019. All the indicators are that adoption of the directive will entail significant and potentially costly changes related to process reforms and transparency requirements, impacting issuers, asset managers, custodians, central securities depositories, and a range of other intermediaries and service providers.
In Shareholder Rights Directive: Advancing to a State of Readiness, we examine the challenges and opportunities related to the introduction of the new SRD requirements. We highlight the areas where examination of processes, business models and technology will be required for:
- Issuers and registrars
- Institutional investors and asset managers
- Custodians, proxy service providers and other intermediaries
The SRD presents a new opportunity to take corporate governance forward; read our paper to assess the implications to your firm.
|