The supervisory boards of listed companies should be required by law to limit managerial salaries. This was decided by the Bundestag's Legal Committee during the final deliberations on the implementation of the European Shareholders Rights Directive.
Accordingly, the Supervisory Board must set a maximum remuneration for the members of the Management Board in the future. In addition, the shareholders' meeting will be granted the right to reduce this amount again.
The Union and the SPD had agreed to the maximum allowance scheme in the course of the implementation of the directive after long debates. Already on Thursday, the Bundestag wants to deal with it in plenary.
The deputy SPD parliamentary group leader Eva Högl described the agreement with the Union faction as a great success: "Excessive board salaries should be a thing of the past." However, it is up to the Supervisory Board whether it decides on a maximum compensation for the entire Executive Board or a separate upper limit for each individual member of the Executive Board.
Sharp criticism from the BDI
To categorize: In 2018, the executive boards of the 30 Dax companies collected around 3.64 million euros - around two percent less than in the previous year. The German Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz (DSW) and the Technische Universität München had found this out. Top earner was again SAP CEO Bill McDermott with around 10.8 million euros, second place occupied Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess with about 7.9 million euros.
The Federal Association of German Industry (BDI) had previously responded to the plans with sharp criticism. "You can certainly criticize the supervisory boards of individual companies, if in their decisions, the sense of scale and center seems to be lost," said BDI Chief Executive Joachim Lang the "Handelsblatt".
There are some questionable cases that can not be glossed over, Lang told the newspaper. "But this does not justify legal regulation for 10,000 public companies and 900 listed companies." In principle, German supervisory boards acted responsibly when determining the remuneration of the management board.
The BDI chief executive warned that "corporations and listed companies could be taken for a handful of outliers by further bureaucracy and restrictions on joint liability". From the point of view of the BDI, the determination of the remuneration of the Management Board should remain with the Supervisory Board. "That's where the strategic decisions for the future of the company are made."