Share these talks and lectures with your colleagues
Invite colleaguesPractice paper
How technology could serve to overcome obstacles to active ownership
Journal of Securities Operations & Custody,
15
(3),
251-259
(2023)
Abstract
Shareholder voting is the cornerstone of corporate governance and accountability, and necessary to reduce the agency problems that exist in corporate settings and limit their related costs. Taking an investor survey as a starting point, this paper delves into the obstacles shareholders currently face when wanting to exercise their voting rights, and notes several EU initiatives to tackle the problem. It continues to reveal the reasons for the main obstacles and offers ideas to remodel the existing intermediated shareholder voting setup through new technologies, such as DLT, to simplify the voting process and enhance (retail) investor engagement in corporate decision taking.
Keywords: shareholder voting; CSDs; intermediated securities; blockchain; DLT; engagement; corporate governance
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Christiane Hölz is Managing Director of Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz e.V. (DSW), the leading German investor association with more than 30,000 individual investors as members. She has extensive and international experience in securities law, sustainability and corporate governance issues, including shareholder voting processes. Christiane is also Vice Chair of ESMAs Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG) and member of EFRAGs Sustainability Reporting Expert Working Group on Governance+ as well as former Vice Chair of the EU Commission's Financial Services User Group (FSUG). She was also a member of the expert group on technical aspects of corporate governance processes advising the EU Commission in relation to the implementation of SRD II. Christiane is an attorney having studied in Germany and in France.
