1. Along with the adoption of the Minder Initiative, also known as the ‘Anti-Rip-off’ Initiative, in Switzerland and the EU Action Plan on Company Law and Corporate Governance (infra n. 3), the new provisions on caps for bonus payments in the banking sector within the framework of the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV) are also worthy of mention here. The recently enacted amendments to CRD IV limit bankers’ bonuses to the amount of the individual’s base salary (1:1 basic salary to bonus ratio), which can only be increased to a maximum 2:1 ratio with approval of a majority of the bank’s shareholders. Also, 50% of bankers’ variable compensation needs to be paid in certain instruments, particularly shares, and only 40% of the value of a bonus can be paid out in the first year while the rest needs to be paid out over a three to five-year period. The Capital Requirements Directive IV, as adopted on 20 June 2013, is available at: .
2. See, for example, OECD, Corporate Governance and the Financial Crisis: Conclusions and Emerging Good Practices to Enhance Implementation of the Principles (February 2010), at p. 3 (para. 2), which makes reference to the following reports: The Corporate Governance Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis (February 2009) and Corporate Governance and the Financial Crisis: Key Findings and Main Messages (June 2009).
3. European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions of 12 December 2012, ‘Action Plan: European Company Law and Corporate Governance: A Modern Legal Framework for More Engaged Shareholders and Sustainable Companies’, COM(2012) 740. The 2012 Action Plan supersedes the Action Plan from 2003 (see the Action Plan ‘Modernising Company Law and Enhancing Corporate Governance in the European Union: A Plan to Move Forward’, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament of 21 May 2003, COM(2003) 284 final).
4. European Commission, ‘Green Paper: Corporate Governance in Financial Institutions and Remuneration Policies’, COM(2010) 284 final. See also the accompanying Commission Staff Working Document, ‘Corporate Governance in Financial Institutions: Lessons to Be Drawn from the Current Financial Crisis, Best Practices’, SEC(2010) 669.
5. European Commission, ‘Green Paper: The EU Corporate Governance Framework’, COM(2011) 164 final.