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2011 Annual Report - OTCIQ.com

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The Supervisory Board has established policies and procedures<br />

for itself. It holds four regular meetings in each financial year.<br />

Its policies and procedures include mechanisms by which, if<br />

necessary, a meeting of the Supervisory Board can be called<br />

at any time by a member or by the Board of Management. In<br />

the event of a tie vote on the Supervisory Board, another<br />

vote is held; if there is still a tie, the Chairperson casts the<br />

tie-breaking vote.<br />

In view of Item 5.4.1 of the Code, in December 2010 the Supervisory<br />

Board defined targets for its <strong>com</strong>position that go<br />

beyond the applicable legal requirements. These targets are<br />

as follows:<br />

“The Supervisory Board’s <strong>com</strong>position should ensure that, on<br />

balance, its members have the necessary expertise, skills, and<br />

professional experience to discharge their duties properly. Each<br />

Supervisory Board member should have or acquire the minimum<br />

expertise and skills needed to be able to understand and<br />

assess on his or her own all the business transactions that<br />

may occur. The Supervisory Board should include a sufficient<br />

number of independent candidates; members are deemed<br />

independent if they do not have any business relationship with<br />

the Company or its Board of Management that constitutes a<br />

conflict of interest. The Supervisory Board should not include<br />

more than two former members of the Board of Management,<br />

and members of the Supervisory Board must not sit on the<br />

boards of, or act as consultants for, any of the Company’s major<br />

<strong>com</strong>petitors.<br />

Each Supervisory Board member must have sufficient time<br />

available to perform his or her duties on the boards of various<br />

E.ON <strong>com</strong>panies. Persons who are members of the board of<br />

management of a listed <strong>com</strong>pany shall therefore only be eligible<br />

as members of E.ON’s Supervisory Board if they do not<br />

sit on more than three supervisory boards of listed non-Group<br />

<strong>com</strong>panies or in <strong>com</strong>parable supervisory bodies of non-Group<br />

<strong>com</strong>panies.<br />

As a general rule, Supervisory Board members should not be<br />

older than 70.<br />

The key role of the Supervisory Board is to oversee and advise<br />

the Board of Management. Consequently, a majority of the<br />

shareholder representatives on the Supervisory Board should<br />

have experience as members of the board of management<br />

of a stock corporation or of a <strong>com</strong>parable <strong>com</strong>pany or association<br />

in order to discharge their duties in a qualified manner.<br />

CEO Letter<br />

E.ON Stock<br />

Combined Group Management <strong>Report</strong><br />

Consolidated Financial Statements<br />

Corporate Governance <strong>Report</strong><br />

Supervisory Board and Board of Management<br />

Tables and Explanations<br />

In addition, the Supervisory Board as a whole should have<br />

particular expertise in the energy sector and the E.ON Group’s<br />

business operations. Such expertise includes knowledge<br />

about the key markets in which the E.ON Group operates. Furthermore,<br />

the internal and external stakeholder groups (shareholders/investors,<br />

employees/unions, society/government) should<br />

be represented in the Supervisory Board.<br />

If the qualifications of several candidates for the Supervisory<br />

Board meet, to an equal degree, the general and <strong>com</strong>panyrelated<br />

requirements, the Supervisory Board intends to consider<br />

other criteria in its nomination of candidates in order to<br />

increase the Supervisory Board’s diversity.<br />

In view of the E.ON Group’s international orientation, the Supervisory<br />

Board should include a sufficient number of members<br />

who have spent, at a minimum, a significant part of their professional<br />

career abroad.<br />

In addition, the Supervisory Board aims to continually increase<br />

the number of women in the Supervisory Board. Currently, one<br />

shareholder representative and one employee representative<br />

are women. The Supervisory Board aims to double this number<br />

at the latest at its next regular election, which takes place in<br />

2013. It aims for 30 percent of Supervisory Board members to be<br />

women as of the regular election after that; this reflects the<br />

percentage of women employees in the E.ON Group.”<br />

These targets for the Supervisory Board’s <strong>com</strong>position were<br />

taken into consideration for the first time by the Nomination<br />

Committee and the full Supervisory Board’s re<strong>com</strong>mendations<br />

for the election of three shareholder representative<br />

Super visory Board members at the <strong>2011</strong> <strong>Annual</strong> Shareholders<br />

Meeting. The <strong>Annual</strong> Shareholders Meeting elected, by a<br />

large majority, the re<strong>com</strong>mended candidates: Baroness Denise<br />

Kingsmill, Bård Mikkelsen, and René Obermann. Baroness<br />

Denise Kingsmill’s membership on the United Kingdom’s Monopolies<br />

and Mergers Commission and her many successful<br />

years as an attorney give her extensive knowledge of energy<br />

markets and their <strong>com</strong>petitive and regulatory environment as<br />

well as broad political experience. René Obermann has<br />

177

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