TITLE

Draft Fifth Directive -- voting rights for preference shares

AUTHOR(S)

Dishington, Jo

PUB. DATE

February 1992

SOURCE

Accountancy;Feb1982, Vol. 109 Issue 1182, p58

SOURCE TYPE

Trade Publication

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the move by the European Commission to adopt a third amended proposal for a Fifth Company Law Directive. This builds on the second amended proposal made by the Commission in December 1990 which limited to 50% of a company's subscribed capital the amount of preference shares which could be issued in return for restricted or excluded voting rights. If holders of preference shares did not receive their preferential rights for a period of three consecutive accounting years, the second amended proposal provided that voting rights would then be automatically attached to their shares. The new proposal amends this provision by stipulating that preference shares will carry voting rights from the time that the shareholder does not receive his preferential rights and makes it clear that the voting rights will subsist for as long as the preferential treatment is not forthcoming.

ACCESSION #

5898625

Tags: EUROPEAN Commission;  PREFERRED stocks -- Law & legislation;  STOCKHOLDERS' pre-emptive rights;  STOCKHOLDERS;  CORPORATION law

 

Related Articles

• VARIATIONS ON THE CLASS THEME. Bourne, Nicholas // Accountancy;Jan1988, Vol. 101 Issue 1133, p128 

  This article examines some court cases in Great Britain that have involved a consideration of what constitutes a class of shares and what amounts to a variation of class rights and the method of varying class rights. There are few more difficult areas of company law than the complex web of legal...

• Proposed amendment to draft Fifth Company. Dishington, Jo // Accountancy;May91, Vol. 107 Issue 1173, p58 

  Reports on the proposed amendments to the European Commission's fifth company law directive. Limits to preferential shares issued in return for restricted voting rights; Number of votes allowed to a single shareholder; Nomination of board members.

• Days may be numbered for Volkswagen Law.  // Automotive Manufacturing Solutions;Mar/Apr2007, p10 

  The article deals with the implementation of a German legislation which protects Volkswagen from foreign takeover. Under the legislation, shareholders in the company are not allowed to exercise more than 20 percent of the firm's voting rights, regardless of their level of stock holding....

• Some important sections of the Companies Acts -- Part 2. Keenan, Denis // Accountancy;Oct81, Vol. 92 Issue 1058, p113 

  Part II. Discusses important provisions of Great Britain's Companies Act of 1980 for those reviewing for accounting licensure examinations. Classification of companies; Right of preemption in equity shareholders; Loans to directors and connected persons.

• Factors Affecting the Value of the Stock Voting Right: Evidence from the Swiss Equity Market. Kunz, Roger M.; Angel, James J. // FM: The Journal of the Financial Management Association;Autumn96, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p7 

  Reports that Switzerland offers a natural setting for investigating factors affecting the value of the stock voting rights. Previous work on the value of corporate voting rights; Equity capital structure of Swiss companies; Data used in the study; Measurement of the premium in value of the...

• Business should act for all its stakeholders--before `the feds' do. Mahoney, Richard J. // NACD Directorship;Feb97, Vol. 23 Issue 2, p4 

  Focuses on the need for corporations to take heed of employee and other stakeholders' rights. Need to modify corporate behavior; Anger caused by executive stock-option gains; Broadening stock option participation.

• Double your pleasure.  // Newsweek;5/9/1994, Vol. 123 Issue 19, p51 

  Describes the small bonuses for shareholders provided by many companies. Purchase of 100 shares of CML Group returns a ten percent discount on their NordicTrack exercise machines and Smith & Hawken garden equipment. What Wrigley gum offers.

• Arrow's Theorem and the Exclusive Shareholder Franchise. Hayden, Grant; Bodie, Matthew // Vanderbilt Law Review;May2009, Vol. 62 Issue 4, p1215 

  In this Essay, we contest one of the main arguments for restricting corporate board voting to shareholders. In justifying the limitation of the franchise to shareholders, scholars have repeatedly turned to social choice theory-specifically, Arrow's theorem-to justify the exclusive shareholder...

• UK Shareholders' Lost Access to Management Information. Pratt, Ken C.; Storrar, A. Cohn // Accounting & Business Research (Wolters Kluwer UK);Summer97, Vol. 27 Issue 3, p205 

  This paper examines the nature and use of the rights that UK shareholders once had to inspect their companies' books of account, and identifies seven factors that contributed to loss of those rights, mainly in the second half of the 19th century. It also considers whether those seven factors...

Read the Article