Politics

More powers to financial services control

The Federal coalition’s project for enhancing the protection of small investors on the grey capital market came under fire during the meeting of the Federal council on February 6. The Länder chamber announced that the measures proposed would limit the powers granted to the financial services governing body (BaFin) instead of broadening them and insists that the wording as it is represents a step backwards compared to today’s version and must absolutely be amended. Furthermore, the Länder point out that the guarantee conditions published on the brochure are less advanced than those presently in force and thus inadequate to meet demands. The Federal council would also like to broaden BaFin’s scope in terms of sanctions for breaching the rules that safeguard consumers and discussing making it mandatory for service company administrators to issue a personal guarantee for particularly heinous breaches. The programme to protect small shareholders was launched approximately two months ago by the German government to safeguard consumers from the risks of cash ventures on sale through the grey capital market.

Economy pushing hard for last resort regulation

In the course of the Bundestag public session of February 23, the amendment lobbied for by German economic circles granting an out on legislation on gender equality as it affects Supervisory Boards of German companies, set off echoes that resonated long and loud. Expert opinion has it that the Bill that the government tabled in parliament with its objective of pursuing gender-equality requirements by legislation at company executive level is in need of some fine tuning. Apparently there are certain passages in the Bill that are anti-constitutional and in partial conflict with European legislation. According to the Bundestag the drive by the government and the Greens to increase the number of women in top jobs was very welcome. In the opinion of Friederike Maier, professor at the Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht in Berlin, a recognised exception or so-called hardship clause that comes into play whenever no suitable woman is available to fill a vacancy is useless. The Association of the German legal profession, instead, maintains that such a clause with the admissibility of exceptions, is absolutely indispensible and the only way of keeping gender equality legislation in line with that of constitutional and European law.