Federal popular initiative "against excessive remunerations"
(Also known as " rip-off initiative " or " minority initiative" ) The federal popular initiative "against the rip-off " is a Swiss popular initiative, which was launched by the now selected for the canton of Schaffhausen in the Senate entrepreneur Thomas Minder 2005. The initiative was a response to the perceived exorbitant remuneration of individual managers in large Swiss companies and banks. One of the main causes was the grounding of Swissair in 2001. During the then head of Swissair, Mario Corti, had taken five years salaries in advance, remained Minder ( at least initially ) as a supplier of cosmetic products sit on its unpaid invoices. The initiative came on March 3, 2013 vote and was adopted by a yes -vote share of 67.9 %. This was the third highest approval rate to a popular initiative in Switzerland at all.
Content
The initiative aims at banning severance payments and advance payments for directors of listed companies, a ban on organ and proxy voting law and requires that pension funds have to vote at general meetings on behalf of their members. At the same time it calls for the annual election of the Chairman and of the individual directors by the shareholders and requires the introduction of electronic distance voting.
Unsolicited text
I
The Federal Constitution of 18 April 1999 is hereby amended as follows:
Article 95, paragraph 3 (new)
3 For the protection of the national economy, private property and the shareholders as well as in terms of sustainable corporate governance law governs the listed domestically or abroad Swiss joint-stock companies according to the following principles:
A The general meeting approves annually on the total of all payments ( cash and value of benefits in kind ) of the Directors, the Executive Board and the Advisory Board. It elects annually the Board President or the Chairman of the Board and the individual members of the Board and the Compensation Committee and the independent representative or the independent representative. The pension funds vote in the interests of the insured and disclose how they voted. The shareholders may vote electronically far away; the corporate and custody Proxy Voting is prohibited.
B. The Board members receive no departure or other compensation, no compensation in advance, no premium for acquisitions and disposals and no additional consultancy or employment by another company of the group. The leadership of the company may not be delegated to a legal entity.
C. The statutes regulate the amount of credits, loans and pensions to the board members, their success and sharing plans and the number of mandates outside of the Group as well as the duration of the employment contracts of Executive Committee members.
D offenses committed against the provisions of the letter ac is punishable up to six years' pay with imprisonment up to three years and fine.
II
The transitional provisions of the Federal Constitution be amended as follows:
Article 197 Paragraph 8 ( new)
8 Transitional provision to Article 95, paragraph 3
Pending implementation of the legal provisions of the Federal Council shall, within one year of the adoption of Article 95 paragraph 3 people and the cantons the necessary implementing provisions.
History
At the beginning of the 21st century has led in many global large companies to widely exaggerated perceived benefits and compensation of managers, while their companies were unprofitable part. 2005 launched the Schaffhausen small business owner Thomas Minder the federal popular initiative "against the rip-off ," he finally submitted on 26 February 2008 with 118'583 certified signatures.
There followed several years of discussion in the Parliament, which finally decided to issue no recommendation to the initiative, and an indirect counter- proposal decided in March 2012 in the form of a legal article, the effect automatically, no one should take the referendum and the popular initiative be rejected. He foresees that in listed companies, the Board shall adopt a remuneration regulations, which must be approved by the shareholders. The annual remuneration should be disclosed in the remuneration report. For the reimbursement of unjustified payments of the counter- proposal goes further than the initiative. According to the initiators essential demands are not implemented in this article of law, which they described as " toothless paper tiger ". So torn on severance payments remained possible and also the corporate and custody Proxy Voting will not prohibited. The pension funds would also not be bound to perceive in the general meetings the interests of its insured. The indirect counter-proposal would be set until after the referendum period and in the case of a referendum after the corresponding voting in force. Moreover, he would grant the public companies a two-year transition period for implementing the new laws.
Minder renounced a retreat of the initiative. Thus, this came on March 3, 2013 vote. If adopted, the initiative would gain no later than March 3, 2014 legal effect, because it requires that the Federal Council to adopt the transitional regulation within one year.
While the initiative committee in voting campaign about CHF 200,000 were available, invested the opponents of the initiative, led by the Business Federation Economiesuisse, eight million francs. Despite this imbalance, the initiative according to surveys by the beginning of February had an approval of 64 % of the voters (with a rejection of 27%). Commentators expected a further rise in support for the initiative after two weeks was known before the vote that the outgoing Novartis Chairman Daniel Vasella going for a non-competition clause with a consultant 12 million per year, total maximum of 72 million Swiss francs, obtained in six years.