21 - Shareholder Engagement and Corporate Voting in a Comparative Perspective

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of the main findings of the 19 jurisdictions that are studied in the Handbook on Shareholder Engagement and Voting. The chapter describes the different legal means available for shareholders to engage with their companies, and outlines both the procedural requirements for general meetings and the material shareholder rights in a comparative perspective. Partly due to global capital markets and the rise of institutional ownership, this chapter shows important similarities in shareholder control rights and convergence between jurisdictions. An important example of such convergence are say-on-pay rights: in virtually all jurisdictions, shareholders have some sort of say-on-pay to date. Yet, this chapter also shows that important differences remain, also marked by the large variety of advisory and binding say-on-pay rights. Clearly, the although the legal infrastructure is a very important factor for the practice of shareholder rights, domestic factors often play a major role, even in today’s globalized markets.