Corporate governance: long-term shareholder engagement: Initial Appraisal of a European Commission Impact Assessment

Briefing 13-04-2015

This note seeks to provide an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Commission's Impact Assessment (IA) accompanying the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2007/36/EC as regards the encouragement of long-term shareholder engagement, a Directive 2013/34/EU as regards certain elements of the corporate governance statement (COM (2014) 213),and a Commission Recommendation on the quality of corporate governance reporting ('comply or explain') (C(2014) 2165) This note, prepared by the Ex-Ante Impact Assessment Unit for the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament, analyses whether the principal criteria laid down in the Commission’s own Impact Assessment Guidelines, as well as additional factors identified by the Parliament in its Impact Assessment Handbook, appear to be met by the IA. It does not attempt to deal with the substance of the proposal.