Ministers are pressing ahead with plans to make shareholder meetings online-only in a move that will make it easier for firms to ‘dodge accountability’, campaigners said this weekend.
The Mail is campaigning for all FTSE 100 firms to hold face-to-face annual meetings in the UK.
Drugs giant AstraZeneca and defence contractor BAE Systems have gone to a digital-only format, barring shareholders from turning up in person. Now, in a new blow to shareholder democracy, the Government wants ‘to simplify and streamline company law to make it fit for the 21st century’.
Blair McDougall, Minister for Corporate Governance, said: ‘These changes will give directors and shareholders the power to decide to hold fully virtual annual general meetings and decide what’s right for their business.’
Dodging accountability: Ministers are pressing ahead with plans to make shareholder meetings online-only
Luke Hildyard of lobby group ShareAction criticised the move, which was buried in an official statement cancelling proposed audit reforms. He said: ‘Annual meetings conducted exclusively online make it so much easier for boards to manipulate the agenda, ignore questions and avoid scrutiny. Dodging accountability in this way is going to lead to worse decision-making.’
Caroline Escott, chairwoman of the £150 billion Governance for Growth Investor Campaign lobby group, said virtual-only meetings ‘make it harder for shareholders to hold companies to account’.
She added: ‘They run counter to long-term value creation, reduce investor confidence, and could ultimately hurt the UK’s economic resilience and growth potential.’
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