Europe: Internal Market Commissioner's speech on corporate governance

On 6 December, European Internal Market Commissioner McCreevy was at Westminster, delivering a speech to the All Party Parliamentary Corporate Governance Group. Some interesting points from Commissioner McCreevy include:

"My recent decision not to propose any EU measure on one-share-one-vote does not mean that I do not believe in one-share-one-vote any more. I continue to believe it is in the best interest of companies and their investors. However, I do not believe that EU action would be useful or fruitful".

"We are looking into the issue of whether we need a recommendation on Shareholders' rights to accompany the recently approved Shareholders' Rights Directive. We are also having a close look at the proper application of existing rules. One of the areas we are looking at in this context is the "acting in concert" rules in the Takeover Directive. I am concerned that some Member States are giving far too wide a reading on this concept, thereby preventing legitimate collaboration between shareholders".

The speech is available here.

A week or so after Commissioner McCreevy's speech, the European Commission published an impact assessment on the proportionality between capital and control in listed companies, which explores the arguments for and against legislation within this area. This is available here.