21st century company law in Belgium

The new Belgian Code of Companies and Associations (BCCA) of 23 March 2019 entered into force on 1 May 2019 (See section 8 for the details.). The BCCA is divided in five parts, and further subdivided in different books. The first part, from book 1 to book 3, contains the general provisions that apply to companies, associations and foundations. Part 2 contains provisions specifically applicable to the different types of companies. Part 3 continues with the provisions that apply to associations and foundations. Part 4 deals with the restructuring and the transformation of the legal form and the last Part 5 contains provisions on the European legal forms

Het Belgische Wetboek van Vennootschappen en Verenigingen : een verkenning

België hervormde het vennootschapsrecht aanzienlijk. Het aantal vennootschapsvormen is teruggebracht en het nieuwe Wetboek van vennootschappen en verenigingen voerde de principes in van een beperking van het bedrag van de maximale bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid en van de statutaire zetelleer. De BV is vooruitgeschoven als de belangrijkste vennootschapsvorm. De BV kent geen kapitaal maar een eigen vermogen en kan statutair ingericht worden naar de wensen van de oprichters. Vennootschappen kunnen kiezen voor een monistische of dualistische bestuursstructuur en het stemrecht is voortaan moduleerbaar. Het vennootschapsrecht is gemoderniseerd, maar de overhaaste invoering vereist tal van technische correcties die het Belgische parlement momenteel voorbereidt

Shareholder voice in complex intermediated proxy systems : blockchain technology as a solution?

Despite the great importance of shareholder engagement to date, the exercise of shareholder voting and other rights is substantially flawed. There are several different intermediated securities models used around the world that all drive a wedge between the issuer and the beneficial owner of the shares and the accompanying rights. In many jurisdictions including the US and the UK, the beneficial owner is not the legal owner of the securities, but rather an intermediary is considered the formal legal share owner. Other intermediated systems recognize the direct ownership of the investor, but impose a legal fiction on the number of intermediated tiers in the securities chain, ignoring practical holding chains (the Spanish system). This and the use of omnibus accounts at many levels in the (cross-border) intermediated chains have resulted in costly problems at the expense of shareholders, which are not solved by current regulatory initiatives. Blockchain technology can address the main problems with the current intermediated proxy voting and engagement systems and facilitate the two largest needs in the intermediated chains today, namely i) the identification of shareholders by issuers and, ii) the end-to-end confirmation that the votes are exercised by the beneficial owners and are correctly included in the voting outcomes. Moreover, blockchains have the potential to solve pressing issues in the shareholder stewardship debate, for instance by increasing engagement between shareholders and companies on voting items that (potentially) receive large dissent rates, and making more transparent the role of proxy advisors in institutional shareholder voting decisions. However, because of the involvement of many intermediaries that may see in the introduction of blockchain a disruption of their existing business models, it is expected that reform may take a while in many markets, particularly without any serious harmonisation efforts. Consequently, involvement of regulators is key to achieving the full potential of shareholder voting and engagement using blockchains