Convocation Of General Meetings and Plenary Meetings Under German Law
Aydın Alber YüceThe convocation of a general meeting (GM) prevents shareholders from being at a disadvantage when exercising their rights. Shareholders are informed in advance of the topics to be discussed at a general meeting, so they know when the meeting will take place and whether they will attend. In most cases, shareholders are not necessarily required to attend a GM because they may not have an interest in the topics that will be discussed there. Nevertheless, a GM must be convoked and an agenda announced in order to be able to make this decision. Some cases do not require applying these procedural rules for convening a GM. In particular, these aforementioned requirements can be waived if all shareholders are present together; in this case, a plenary meeting is held. This can occur when all shareholders are present and none of the shareholders object to the procedures for a plenary meeting. The shareholders that are present can pass resolutions at a plenary meeting as long as all shareholders remain present.
Einberufung Der Hauptversammlung Und Die Vollversammlung Nach Deutschem Recht
Aydın Alber YüceDie Einberufung einer Hauptversammlung beseitigt die Benachteiligung der Aktionäre bei der Ausübung ihrer Rechte. Denn auf diese Weise erfahren die Aktionäre sowohl, wann die Hauptversammlung stattfinden wird, als auch, ob sie an der Hauptversammlung teilnehmen oder nicht, da sie im Voraus über die auf der Hauptversammlung zu behandelnden Themen informiert werden. In den meisten Fällen ist es nicht erforderlich, dass die Aktionäre an der betreffenden Hauptversammlung teilnehmen, weil sie an den dort zu erörternden Themen nicht interessiert sind. Um diese Entscheidung treffen zu können, muss die Hauptversammlung jedoch einberufen und die Tagesordnung bekannt gegeben werden. In einigen Fällen müssen diese Verfahrensregeln für die Einberufung der Hauptversammlung nicht angewendet werden. Der Verzicht auf die vorgenannten Anforderungen ist insbesondere dann relevant, wenn alle Aktionäre gemeinsam anwesend sind; in diesem Fall wird eine “Vollversammlung” abgehalten. Wenn nämlich alle Aktionäre anwesend sind und keiner der Aktionäre dem Verfahren zur Vollversammlung widerspricht, können die erschienenen Aktionäre in der Vollversammlung Beschlüsse fassen, solange die Tatsache, dass alle Aktionäre anwesend sind, gewahrt bleibt.
Joint stock company is a capital company and at the same time, the capital of a joint stock company is divided into shares. Unlike sole proprietorships, this feature of a joint stock company brings it closer to a multi-partner structure. In other words, having many stakeholders is the nature of a joint stock company. In a multi-shareholder company, shareholders may have different opinions regarding the course and administration of the company’s affairs. Shareholders should have the opportunity to put these different opinions into practice, or at least to concretize them.
In German law, a general meeting of the joint stock company is how shareholders are able to influence the process of the company’s affairs. General assembly meetings can be stated as the place where shareholders are able to exercise their rights arising from holding shares in the joint stock company, especially their administrative rights.
A general assembly is one of the organs of a joint stock company, the other organs being the board of directors and the supervisory board. While the board of directors is the administrative and representative body of the joint stock company, the general assembly is the board where shareholders exercise their administrative rights, as mentioned earlier. In order for shareholders to exercise these rights, they must come together, and this gathering is called a general assembly meeting.
Because a board of directors manages a joint stock company, shareholders are generally unfamiliar with the company’s affairs. This unfamiliarity with the affairs of the company results in shareholders being uninformed about such things as when general assembly meetings are to be held or whether an extraordinary general assembly meeting is required. This ignorance has created a new need.
In order to convene a general assembly, a call for a meeting must be made. Calling (convoking) a general assembly meeting prevents stakeholders from being disadvantaged in terms of exercising their rights. This is because convocation allows shareholders to both learn when the general shareholders’ meeting will be held and to decide on whether or not to participate in the general shareholders’ meeting, as they are informed in advance about the issues that will be discussed at the general shareholders’ meeting. In most cases, shareholders are not required to attend a general assembly meeting that has been called, as they may not have an interest in the issues that are to be discussed at the meeting. However, in order to make this decision, the general assembly meeting must be called and the agenda must be announced.
This study discusses the legal provisions that exist in German law regarding a number of procedural issues, including how a general assembly meeting is to be called, when the call has to take place, and the persons who are allowed to make the call. In particular, many conditions must occur in order to enable participation in a general assembly meeting, such as the invitation to the general assembly meeting needing to be sent to shareholders a specific period of time before the meeting, the agenda needing to be announce beforehand, and the place and time of the meeting to also be determined in advance.
In some cases, these procedural rules regarding the convening of the general assembly do not need to be applied. The elimination of these aforementioned requirements is particularly relevant when all shareholders are present together, in which case a plenary meeting can be held. Indeed, if all the shareholders are together and none of the shareholders object to the procedure for convening a plenary meeting, these shareholders are able to adopt resolutions in the capacity of a general assembly as long as all the shareholders remain together.
Some essential and indispensable conditions must occur for the convening of an uncalled general assembly meeting (plenary meeting). First of all, the assembled shareholders must have already been convened in the form of a general assembly. In this sense, a general meeting of shareholders cannot be convened if the shareholders have come together only by chance and in a manner completely devoid of corporative purposes (e.g., during a vacation). Again, all shareholders or their representatives must be present in order for a general assembly meeting to be convened without the application of the rules regarding the convocation. Another condition in this regard is that none of the shareholders or their representatives are to object to the general assembly meeting being held in this manner. Moreover, waiving the application of the rules regarding the call for shareholders’ meetings requires that the will of all shareholders to adopt resolutions among themselves be maintained throughout the meeting. Because no interest is found worth protecting due to the fact that all shareholders are together, the shareholders are not expected to adhere to the agenda of a general assembly meeting. In such a case, an item may be added to the agenda by unanimous vote, and adopting resolutions regarding new items remains possible as long as the meeting quorum of 100% is maintained.
