Buhlmann's Corner

The guilty don’t need to be looked for ...

They are found by themselves. In her policy statement, the German Chancellor had, with her coalition partners, listed “planning for nuclear security”, and the economy minister wanted to survive the next 14 days. Werner Schnappauf’s signature on it was to prove a political disaster for him – he resigned as managing director of the Federation of German Industries.

Shortly after scourging investors’ quarterly thinking as one of the causes of the financial crisis, or better crisis of confidence, the same Federal Government proposes a 90-day moratorium on nuclear energy. The quarterly thinking was rightly questioned, and then perpetuated with long-term incentives. The bonus without liability was one of the causes of the financial and confidence crisis – and it is just this bonus that the German voters have denied the black-yellow government in recent state and local elections. Those who, after decades of substantive discussion, need a 90-day moratorium and operate a decree policy without legal certainty should leave the ground free for better people – instead of abstaining in UN resolutions.

The RWE shareholders should follow the same line and take a clear standpoint at the next AGM: say yes or no to the counter-motions regarding disproportion and conflicts of interest in the selection of future supervisory-board members. The need is to send a stable supervisory board supported by a large majority into the difficult negotiations over a future for RWE.

You cannot, for historical reasons, elect municipal governments to the supervisory board, and then let at least as strong a group, non-German institutional shareholders, be represented very meagerly by a former politician from Austria. The shareholders should force the entire board, and especially the Nomination Committee, to put together a new RWE supervisory board. Nor is it enough to make eyes at quotas for women; the focus should be primarily on internationality and on the shareholder groups (including, but not primarily, in gender-specific terms) to send into the supervision of the company.

Fortunately, all the agencies producing voting recommendations have given the same advice. Now it remains to be seen what voices on the platforms of voting investors can make it to the AGM quorum. All those who don’t ask for a voting receipt are acting carelessly to negligently.

Only the vote arriving safely in the ballot box at the general meeting is practical corporate governance!