August 2017
Written or electronic voting is allowed for exercising voting rights by securities firms and commissioned futures merchants (Taiwan)
Melanie Lo
The Financial Supervisory Commission prescribed the manners and relevant requirements for exercising voting rights by commissioned futures merchants via the Jin-Guan-Qi-10500211261 Circular of July 22, 2016 and the manners and relevant requirements for exercising voting rights by securities firms via the Jin-Guan-Qi-1050021126 Circular of July 22, 2016. In both instances, the requirements went into effective immediately.
The above circulars provide that securities firms and commissioned futures merchants may exercise the voting rights embedded in the shares they hold in writing pursuant to Article 177-1 of the Company Law. If the shareholders' meeting of a company whose stock is held by a securities firm or commissioned futures merchant does not adopt electronic voting with less than 300,000 shares held by the securities firm or commissioned futures merchant, it is permitted not to assign a representative to attend the shareholders' meeting, and the securities firm shall be free from the restriction under Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Regulations Governing Securities Firms and the commissioned futures merchant shall be free from the restriction under Article 23-1, Paragraph 2 of the Regulations Governing Commissioned Futures Merchants.
In addition, the above circulars also stress that except when the voting rights embedded in the shares held by securities firms and commissioned futures merchants are exercised electronically, instructions about the exercise of voting rights with respect to all kinds of proposals in the proxies should be clearly specified, and the above proxies and electronic voting records should be maintained for reference.
The Financial Supervisory Commission prescribed the manners and relevant requirements for exercising voting rights by commissioned futures merchants via the Jin-Guan-Qi-10500211261 Circular of July 22, 2016 and the manners and relevant requirements for exercising voting rights by securities firms via the Jin-Guan-Qi-1050021126 Circular of July 22, 2016. In both instances, the requirements went into effective immediately.
The above circulars provide that securities firms and commissioned futures merchants may exercise the voting rights embedded in the shares they hold in writing pursuant to Article 177-1 of the Company Law. If the shareholders' meeting of a company whose stock is held by a securities firm or commissioned futures merchant does not adopt electronic voting with less than 300,000 shares held by the securities firm or commissioned futures merchant, it is permitted not to assign a representative to attend the shareholders' meeting, and the securities firm shall be free from the restriction under Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Regulations Governing Securities Firms and the commissioned futures merchant shall be free from the restriction under Article 23-1, Paragraph 2 of the Regulations Governing Commissioned Futures Merchants.
In addition, the above circulars also stress that except when the voting rights embedded in the shares held by securities firms and commissioned futures merchants are exercised electronically, instructions about the exercise of voting rights with respect to all kinds of proposals in the proxies should be clearly specified, and the above proxies and electronic voting records should be maintained for reference.
