Say on pay, the right of shareholders to vote on the remuneration of the executive directors, is considered an important tool to align the interests of the executive management with other corporate insiders. Since the start of the millennium, many countries provided shareholders with some kind of say on pay-tool, though often the vote is exclusively of an advisory nature or only envisages the approval of the remuneration policy. The question is raised how effective this say on pay instrument is. This seminar addresses the regulatory framework of say on pay. It provides evidence how shareholders make use of this empowering tool. The research focuses on the positive effects of this mechanism but also shows where the tool falls short and suggests how the shortcomings can be mitigated. 

About the speakers:

Prof. Christoph Van der Elst is professor of Business Law and Economics at Tilburg University (The Netherlands) and at Ghent University (Belgium) and held/holds visiting professorships at Vanderbilt, IDC, UAMS, European College, Babeș-Bolyai University and CLEI. He is an ECGI research associate. In Tilburg he is chairing the Department of Business Law. He is a member of the Belgian Bar (Cottyn) and advised many different government agencies at national and international level. He is also a member of the audit committee of the Ghent University Hospital and an independent director of Aphilion. His current research interests are corporate governance, (economic analysis of) company law and in particular shareholder rights and voting and the effects of distributed ledger technology, all topics in which he published widely in academic and professional journals.

Prof. Anne Lafarre Msc LLM is assistant professor at the Business Law Department at Tilburg University. She also teaches at the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. She holds a cum laude master’s degree in economics and in law. Her Ph.D. in 2017 at Tilburg University, which was awarded cum laude, concerned comparative-legal and econometric analyses of shareholder (voting) behavior in the Annual  General Meeting of shareholders (AGM). As a result of her multidisciplinary background, her research sits at the heart of the law and economics research area. She works mainly in the field of corporate governance. Her most recent research focuses on the use of modern technologies in corporate law, including the modernization of the AGM and shareholder engagement, shareholder sustainability activism and shareholder voting in a comparative perspective. Lafarre was nominated for the title of New Scientist Talent 2018 of the Netherlands and Belgium.