The European Commission has started legal action against eight of its 27 member states – including France and Spain – for failing to implement a directive aimed at protecting shareholder rights.
The countries have all missed an August 2009 deadline to transfer the European Shareholders’ Rights Directive into their national laws.
The directive says shareholders in listed companies must have timely access to information ahead of general meetings and simple ways of voting at a distance. It also gives them rights to ask questions, put items on the general meeting agenda and table resolutions.
The countries’ failure to implement the directive means that “shareholders in those member states do not enjoy the same rights as elsewhere in Europe and are denied the rights the directive gives them when investing in publicly listed companies,” the Commission said.
It has referred the eight countries – Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Sweden – to the European Court of Justice, which can force them to comply.
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