Most of the investors do not really look carefully at proposals requiring to renew auditors : during the 2012 proxy season in France, this type of proposal was approved by 98.8% of the voting rights. However some responsible investors start to do their best efforts to address the problem of auditors' independence and a coalition of investors led by USS was launched with the support of ECGS and Proxinvest.

As long as the French State does not respect shareholders, it will not find investors and investments, it will not create jobs. If this sounds tough it is only logical and demonstrated as the last twenty years show that left or right wing French governments and their civil servants despise investors, whether individual or institutional.

Ethos, our ECGS partner, recommends to oppose the remuneration reports at the annual general meetings of Credit Suisse (26 April) and UBS (2 May). Despite some progress made by the two banks with regard to the executive remuneration structure, the amounts paid are still too high.

FIAT and FIAT Industries: possibly the worse remuneration policy in Italy!

In order to put an end to the German 'share blocking tale' DSW, the German ECGS member,  requested the German Financial Markets Authority (BaFin) to clarify as early as possible the most recent discussions on the OLG Köln court decision.  This court ruling had led to a wave of confusion at some German custodian banks and as a consequence was also misinterpreted by institutional investors abroad.