FINANCIAL COMMUNICATION: FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICES - 2019 EDITION

81 Transparency of the voting process In its recommendation on general meetings of shareholders of listed companies, updated on October 5, 2018, the AMF put forward proposals, even recommendations, aimed at strengthening voting transparency at shareholders’ meetings: n The AMF reminds issuers that they must take into account any vote expressed via a document or form satisfying legal and regulatory requirements and recommends that they use the standardised voting form designed by the ANSA and the CFONB (without prejudice to their right to recommend the use of the voting form of their choice); n The AMF recommends providing a reasonable number of voting boxes at shareholders’ meetings to corporate officers requesting such devices; n The AMF recommends that issuers whose shareholders hold shares in bearer form clearly indicate to these shareholders, in the notice of general meeting, that an admittance card is sufficient to participate in the meeting in person and that they only need to request a certificate of ownership in exceptional cases where they have lost their admittance card or did not receive it in time; n The AMF recommends, lastly, to shareholders and issuers using the services of bailiffs at their shareholders’ meetings that they require the latter to specify in the report they produce the extent and limits of their assignment. The AMF has put forward proposals for legislative and regulatory amendments, which aim in particular at 134 : n providing that any vote by proxy or by correspondence be date- and time-stamped and that its receipt be confirmed electronically; n ensuring the right, for all types of shareholders and vote, for shareholders to obtain confirmation that their votes have been taken into account at the shareholders’ meeting, or the reason why they have not been taken into account, upon request made within three months of the date of the vote; n disclosing publicly, when the results of the vote are announced, the total number of rejected voting rights of which the issuer is aware at the date of the shareholders’ meeting; n drafting a methodological guide on how votes are processed at shareholders’ meetings for the transfer agents, custody account-keepers and issuers that handle some or all of this processing. 134 – AMF Recommendation, General meetings of shareholders of listed companies, DOC-2012-05, amended on October 5, 2018.