Shareholders' rights are important

The DTI have published a consulation document called "a proposal for a Directive on the exercise of voting rights by shareholders".  Aimed at those in the know, this consultation commences with the ground-breaking statement that:

Shareholder rights are important.

In the same vein, Corporate Blawg sincerely hopes that when the Ministry of Defence was consulted before going to war in Iraq the first sentence of their report was "War is bad".  Anyway, the EU's proposal that has inspired this consultation document will affect the rights of shareholders to  be informed of meetings and how those shareholders exercise their rights at those meetings.  The consultation can be boiled down to four key horsemen for trading between Member States:

1. The abolition of "share-blocking".  Whilst not quite being a "cool term" share-blocking is the process by which shareholders must notify the company of the intention to vote at a forthcoming meeting by a certain date.  After this date shares are not permitted to be traded.  The EU suggests 30 days before the meeting is the earliest.  Currently in the UK we have 2 days.
2. Sufficent advance notice for meetings.  The EU proposes 30 days, which will impact on the UK's 21 days for AGMs and 14 days for EGMs. 
3. Removal of legal obstables to electronic participation.  Hooray for the digital age - yet speed and cost must be proportionate to security and identification (the oldies warn us).
4. The ability to vote without attending the meeting.  It is proposed to have a right to vote in absentia, by post or electronic means, without appointing a proxy.

Because it is unlikely that Corporate Blawg will put together a full response to this consultation, Corporate Blawg thought he would express his views here, for discussion by regular readers and those accidental web-tourists looking for porn.

1. SHARE BLOCKING - keep two days - the market will be less efficient with longer time of non-trading shares duh.
2. ADVANCE NOTICE - if it's that important to you, go to it, otherwise vote by email - you don't need 30 days notice, who takes holidays for more than 14 days anyway - you'll have your blackberry with you, so what?
3. ELECTRONIC PARTICIPATION - right on, digitise the lot. 
4. VOTE WITHOUT ATTENDING - apparently Corporate Blawg is a stakeholder in parliament - he's never attended but has voted, so bring it on.

Since the consultation needs to crystallise, and the Commission needs to send the directive to and from the European Parliament a million times, and the directive will then have some way-off implementation date, Corporate Blawg finds it hard to get overly excited about this consultation.  Accordingly, and after this high-level analysis, Corporate Blawg is off to the pub.

p.s. Corporate Blawg thought up a law joke today: How do you serve a judge his whisky?  Just-ice.  Stupid really since judges prefer their whisky straight (off the belly of a Brazilian housecleaner).