Umbrella association of critical shareholders

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Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders e. V.
Logo of the umbrella organization for Critical Shareholders.jpg
purpose for sustainability, environmental protection and social rights in companies, against arms production
Chair: Board members Barbara Happe, Anna Backmann, Jens Hilgenberg, Stefan OJ Klein, Christian Russau
Establishment date: 1986
Number of members: 29 member organizations, representing 1200 individual shareholders
Seat : Cologne
Website: Kritischeaktionaere.de

The umbrella association of critical shareholders is an amalgamation of 29 individual organizations in Germany that campaign against arms production, environmental destruction, the use of nuclear energy, unsocial working conditions and for greater sustainability at large listed companies. Around 1200 shareholders have transferred their voting rights to the umbrella association, thereby supporting its goals.

tasks and goals

The association was founded on February 23, 1986 by groups critical of the company. Among its founding members were Axel Köhler-Schnura from the coordination against BAYER dangers and Helmut Paschlau from the working group No Money for Apartheid .

The umbrella organization

  • participates in general meetings and represents the voting rights of its members there
  • initiates campaigns like STOP Greenwashing! (2011)
  • prepares group studies
  • offers training ( corporate criticism with a share )
  • awards the Henry Mathews Prize once a year to individuals who, as committed shareholders, are outstandingly committed to the goals of the umbrella organization.

The board members, the managing director and members of the association take part in up to 30 general meetings of listed companies each year , submit counter-motions and speak to shareholders.

The association is a registered non-profit association and is financed through membership fees and donations.

Member organizations

The member associations of the umbrella association include:

Transfer of voting rights and general meetings

Every owner of a share in a company has one vote at general meetings of the company. According to the German Stock Corporation Act , this voting right enables him to submit motions that have to be decided upon at the general meeting. All motions from shareholders are published on the company's website before the annual general meeting. The voting right is based on the number of shares that a shareholder owns. The more shares someone has, the more they can influence the price of the company. Many small shareholders therefore consider it sensible to transfer their voting rights to organizations such as the umbrella association of critical shareholders so that they can then submit motions on their behalf - in the person of the managing director of the umbrella association (since the death of Henry Mathews , this has been Markus Dufner ) and speaks at the company's general meeting.

Axel Köhler-Schnura wrote in his contribution to the umbrella association's commemorative publication: 25 years of critical shareholders. Encouraging people - giving corporate victims a voice An attempt has been made to explain the share structure at BAYER-AG. He assumes that "about one percent of all shareholders, that is around 3,000 shareholders [...] own 90 percent or more of the capital, that is 720 million shares and more." According to him, "between 250,000 and 290,000" private individuals are shareholders at Bayer registered. BAYER AG itself writes: "In total, private investors have a share of the share capital of around 11 percent."

11 percent of private investors are compared to 88 percent of major shareholders and institutional investors. From the point of view of the umbrella association, these proportions make it clear how important it is for small shareholders to network with other shareholders in order to be able to raise their voices and be heard at the general meetings. However, they also make it clear from the umbrella association's point of view that without the association's press and public relations work, the issues it brings up would have little influence on corporate management.

Press and public relations

Public relations means include press releases, campaigns on specific topics, corporate studies, etc. Axel Köhler-Schnura describes the BP general meeting (as a reminder: BP was responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 ) on April 14, 2011 in London: " The annual general meeting got completely out of hand, lasted seven hours and got lost, planned by the corporate management as a mere two-hour event, which was supposed to mark the transition from the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico to the 'normal' everyday profit life with full dividends after the gleeful headlines in the international business media about the 'media meltdown' ”. There are more than three million entries on the Internet relating to the activities of Critical Shareholders at this Annual General Meeting, and the event was consistently the top topic in the English-language media.

Campaigns

Every year the association chooses a special campaign topic, which is dealt with in a press-effective manner and is intended to draw attention to existing deficits in the corporations.

The new campaign was named in autumn 2012 and is to be continued in 2013: New energy for the turnaround . The aim of this campaign is to create awareness that the construction of further coal-fired power plants planned by RWE and E.ON will be prevented and the mining of lignite generally stopped, especially against the backdrop of the impending climate catastrophe .

In 2012 there were two campaigns that actually merged. At the beginning of the year, the topic was “Get out of the dead end greed for profit”, which wanted to draw attention to the fact that the worldwide profits of banks and companies are often at the expense of people. While the banks showed their understanding of the issue of financing cluster munitions , arms exports and ethics in general remained an important issue. Specifically, it was about preventing the planned export of 200 Leopard-2 tanks to Saudi Arabia at the time, from which Deutsche Bank and the armaments company Rheinmetall would benefit.

In the course of the year, these activities gave rise to the conviction to give the topic of banks even more space, as they also finance the major projects. The alliance Other Banks Needs the Country arose from a collaboration with the organizations Facing Finance , foodwatch , Without Armament Life and Urwald . The aims of this campaign were, among other things, to get the banks to end harmful and ethically unacceptable investments and to stop speculation in food. Bank customers should find out about their business practices from their respective house banks and should not shy away from switching banks if necessary. The country needs other banks alliance also publishes its own brochures.

In 2011 the theme of the campaign was “Stop Greenwashing !” This was intended to protest against misleading advertising by the corporations, which, in the opinion of the umbrella association, like to give themselves a mostly inapplicable ecological coating. For example, car manufacturers would specifically advertise the environmental friendliness of their electric cars, but conceal the fact that the electricity from the eco filling station is not electricity generated in an environmentally friendly way, but is based on the conventional energy mix, which basically means that these cars u. a. operated with nuclear power. A mere 16 percent of the normal electricity mix consists of electricity generated by renewable energies.

While the individual car manufacturers advertise their high-quality, environmentally friendly cars with low CO 2 emissions, according to a study by Transport and Environment from 2010, only 4 out of 14 car manufacturers have the EU limit of 140 grams CO 2 per kilometer in 2010 adhered to in the fleet average. In fact, global CO 2 emissions rose more sharply in 2010 than ever before: “In total, around 33,500 million tons of CO 2 were released into the atmosphere last year , according to a current projection by the Department of Energy in Washington. That is about 1,900 million tons or almost six percent more than in 2009. There has never been a larger increase, said study director Tom Boden of the dpa. "

Other campaigns were:

  • 2010: Giving corporate victims a voice (for people who have been wronged by companies)
  • 2009/2010: Ownership is an obligation (warning corporations to make ethically responsible decisions)
  • 2009: With stocks against exploitation (criticism of tax havens in Europe and the Caribbean)
  • 2008/2009: Rules of the game for global players , (signature campaign - demands on the federal government: to make board members of stock corporations personally liable, to limit the salaries of board members in stock corporations, to forbid board members to switch to the supervisory board of the same company, the position of whistleblowers to strengthen in companies)
  • 2007/2008: Give way for climate protection (climate protection must be effectively anchored in companies)
  • 2007: More transparency in lobbying (disclosure of all forms of lobbying practiced by German companies)

Training

Since 2011, the association has been offering training courses on how small shareholders can influence corporate management under the heading of corporate criticism with one share . The basics of company law are explained and specific information is given to prepare for attending a general meeting.

successes

  • In 2015 Allianz SE announced that it would no longer invest in companies that generate more than 30 percent of their sales from coal mining or more than 30 percent of their energy generation from coal. At the same time, the Allianz Group agreed to sell corresponding shares within 6 months and to let corporate bonds expire and at the same time to invest significantly more money in wind energy . The exit from the coal industry was preceded by numerous actions by non-governmental organizations, as well as speeches by the umbrella association of critical shareholders at the annual general meetings of Allianz SE. The coal divestment of Allianz, as one of the largest asset managers worldwide, was a success with far-reaching effects. Shortly before his retirement, the then CEO of Allianz, Michael Diekmann , certified the critical shareholders in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung , that their appearances at the general meetings are having an impact.
  • In 2015, the umbrella association of critical shareholders launched the “My vote for fair wages” campaign, which was accompanied by a petition. In it, the umbrella association called on Adidas AG , Puma SE and Hugo Boss AG in particular to ensure fair wages and humane working conditions for seamstresses in supplier companies. After Markus Dufner, managing director of the umbrella association, had made himself an impression of the difficult working conditions of the seamstresses on a trip to El Salvador , he confronted the respective CEOs at the annual general meetings of Adidas and Puma that they were up to 2000 times as many as one Earning seamstress in the supplier factories. Puma boss Bjørn Gulden then admitted that his salary was “not fair” compared to that of a seamstress in El Salvador. While Hugo Boss was not aware of any guilt, the criticism of the working conditions at the Adidas suppliers at the second largest sporting goods manufacturer in the world triggered hectic activities for a short time. For example, Adidas hired a world director for social issues and passed a code of conduct that also contains vague formulations on living wages. Like Puma, Adidas joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA) . Nevertheless, the umbrella association of critical shareholders doubts that this will bring about substantial improvements in social standards and describes the efforts as an image campaign.
  • In response to the construction of the Belo Monte Dam in the Amazon region of Brazil with the participation of Siemens AG , Allianz SE and Munich Reinsurance Company, the umbrella association drew attention to the serious environmental damage and human rights violations in the region in 2014. At the Siemens Annual General Meeting 2014, at the invitation of the umbrella association of critical shareholders, Mônica Brito Soares spoke from the resistance alliance “Xingu Vivo para Semper” and protested against the participation of German companies in the dam project. After Carl von Siemens, descendant of Werner von Siemens , heard the speech and was deeply impressed, he traveled to Brazil to see the situation for himself. His verdict: the dam crossed a red line.
  • It is thanks to the continuous research and lobbying work of the Critical Shareholders that Daimler AG sold its shares in the armaments-producing Airbus SE and Tognum AG in 2013 . The participation of Daimler AG at the former DASA (EADS, Airbus Industrie later) that among other antitank directional mines , Submunitionsminen, mine laying systems and cluster munitions has become known to a wider public only through the work of the Critical Shareholders early 21st century, developed and produced. In response to these revelations, the UN children's aid organization UNICEF did not include DaimlerChrysler in its list of sponsors because of its involvement in EADS and ended all cooperation. This met with great enthusiasm from the Critical Shareholders and some member organizations.
  • On November 10, 2011, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported in advance that the Deutsche Bank cut all ties to cluster munitions manufacturers . The human rights and environmental organization Urgewald , a member organization of the umbrella association , has been attending Deutsche Bank's general meetings for years to raise awareness of the problem of cluster munitions. While the international ban on the use of cluster munitions by the Convention on Cluster Munitions has been in force since August 1, 2010 and has been ratified by Germany, it does not cover business with cluster munitions manufacturers. "In the business with cluster munitions manufacturers, the Deutsche Bank Group is the front runner in Germany," said Barbara Happe from Urgewald. Together with other organizations such as Handicap International and Facing Finance , Urgewald repeatedly pointed out what they believed to be the devastating effects of cluster munitions on civilians. At the Annual General Meeting of Deutsche Bank in May 2011, a cluster munition victim spoke directly to the shareholders for the first time at the invitation of Urgewald and Facing Finance. Branislav Kapetanovic, a Serbian mine clearer, had all four limbs torn off by a cluster bomb . As a result, he had to be operated on 20 times and spent three years exclusively in the hospital. The company that manufactured these cluster munitions, Alliant Techsystems , is a good customer of Deutsche Bank. Only after Branislav Kapetanovic's speech did Deutsche Bank boss Josef Ackermann promise to review his bank’s business relationships with cluster munitions manufacturers: “I am confident that we will respond to your request (after you leave)” - and that’s what happened . This result is remarkable because the international agreement banning cluster munitions is being discussed again: On November 14, 2011, negotiations began in Geneva for a second agreement with “significantly weaker standards”, against which many NGOs protested.
  • The association supports Brazilian fishermen who are fighting against the ThyssenKrupp steelworks in Sepetiba Bay , which went into operation in 2010 . There used to be a zinc factory in this bay whose contaminated sites ( cadmium , arsenic and zinc) were stored as solids in the ground. However, the construction work for the new steel mill whirled them up and led to fish deaths. The fishermen recorded income losses of up to 80 percent, which is why they are demanding compensation for the loss of earnings and financial compensation for the environmental damage from ThyssenKrupp. The public prosecutor's office has now charged ThyssenKrupp with environmental damage from blast furnaces 1 and 2. “The factory was supposed to cost 3.5 billion euros, but it has now devoured 5.2 billion euros. […] The company is now expected to pay a total of over 8 million euros in fines and compensation. ”In January 2010, a fisherman's spokesman, Luis Carlos Oliveira, came to Germany at the invitation of the umbrella association of critical shareholders and attended the general meeting ThyssenKrupp gives a speech. Due to the publicity that the case reached, the Brazilian media also became aware of the steelworks and reported increasingly negative reports about it. “It could get even more uncomfortable for ThyssenKrupp in Brazil if the responsible court in Santa Cruz allows the prosecutor to indict the suspected environmental violations. Brazilian law provides for up to 19 years imprisonment for the responsible manager in such cases. And sanctions such as fines, the temporary or complete shutdown of the plant or the cancellation of tax subsidies, ”wrote Kirsten Bialdiga in the Financial Times Deutschland in January 2011.
  • The association supports victims of apartheid who are suing Rheinmetall and Daimler . Originally, the lawsuit was also directed against Dresdner Bank , Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank . Rheinmetall had delivered an ammunition filling plant to South Africa, and Daimler had supplied the police and the military with Unimogs . The banks had given loans to the apartheid government. In 1973 the UN condemned the apartheid regime as a crime against humanity . But that didn't stop German banks from continuing to do business with South Africa. “Deutsche Bank participated in at least 69 public sector bonds in South Africa between 1958 and 1980. These bonds had a nominal value of 1.15 billion euros [,] that is 84 percent of the value of all bonds in which German financial houses participated between 1958 and 1980. ", so Joe Dramiga 2010 in Scilogs . Even today, the South African government is still paying back loans and bonds that date back to the apartheid era: “If it didn't, it would suddenly get no more funds on the international financial market. That hurts personally because it makes it more difficult to establish a new company. ”Later the lawsuit was limited to the Rheinmetall and Daimler companies, as the lawyers“ saw greater opportunities if there was a restriction to arms suppliers who had a direct link to the damage of blacks in South Africa can be proven ”. The Alien Tort Claims Act , a passage in the American legal system, made it possible for victims of apartheid to sue the arms companies . In the event of violations of international law , it allows those affected to sue the companies in the USA that are responsible, even if these companies are not of US nationality and the events did not take place on US soil. The apartheid victims' lawsuit was filed on November 11, 2002 and reopened in April 2009 after many legal squabbles. The final decision on the lawsuit had not yet been made in November 2011. The umbrella organization of critical shareholders supports the lawsuit of the apartheid victims financially. The group of apartheid victims has given itself the name Khulumani and consists of 70 local small groups. Khulumani means 'speak it out' in the Zulu language.
  • In 2006 and 2007, a broad coalition of environmental and anti-nuclear organizations, including the umbrella association and its member organization urgewald, prevented Deutsche Bank AG , HypoVereinsbank and Commerzbank AG and nine other European banks from accepting financing for the nuclear power plant in the earthquake-prone Belene in Bulgaria .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ kritischeaktionaere.de: Board of Directors
  2. ↑ Group criticism. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 15, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Member organizations in the umbrella organization. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on June 26, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Axel Köhler-Schnura: Who has the power? On the possibilities and limits of critical shareholders . In: 25 years of critical shareholders. Encouraging people - giving corporate victims a voice . November 2011, p. 12 ( online; PDF; 1.21 MB ).
  5. ↑ Shareholder structure. Bayer AG, accessed November 15, 2015 .
  6. ↑ New Energy. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on December 12, 2012 (with information on further projects).
  7. ↑ Get out of the dead end greed for profit! Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 15, 2015 (with information on further projects).
  8. ↑ German banks - The gloomy balance sheet of the Ackermann era. (PDF; 2.6 MB) urgewald e. V. in cooperation with the Alliance Other Banks Needs the Land !, 2012, accessed on November 19, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Harald Schumann: Die Hungermacher - How Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs & Co. speculate with food at the expense of the poorest . Ed .: foodwatch report. 2011, p. 88 ( Online (PDF; 2.4 MB) ).
  10. ↑ Profundo economic research: Recent Financing of Producers of Cluster Munitions by Deutsche Bank. (PDF; 609 kB) (No longer available online.) Facing Finance, February 20, 2012, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on November 20, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.andere-banken.de
  11. ^ Deutsche Bank - a questionable trademark. (PDF; 6.12 MB) (No longer available online.) Urgewald, May 22, 2008, archived from the original on May 25, 2012 ; Retrieved November 20, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.andere-banken.de
  12. ^ Deutsche Bank: Speculation with agricultural commodities. (PDF; 60 kB) (No longer available online.) Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, March 27, 2012, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved November 20, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.andere-banken.de
  13. ↑ Nils Klawitter: Greenwashing charge: consumer advocates cover corporations with warnings. May 8, 2010, accessed November 15, 2015 .
  14. ↑ T&E - European Federation for Transport and Environment AiSBL (Ed.): How clean are Europe's cars? An analysis of carmaker progress towards EU CO 2 targets in 2009 . November 2010, p. 30 ( duh.de (PDF)).
  15. ↑ Climate: CO2 emissions worldwide have never been higher. In: Focus Online . November 4, 2011, accessed November 15, 2015 .
  16. ↑ Giving corporate victims a voice. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 15, 2015 (with information on further projects).
  17. ↑ Ownership obliges. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  18. ↑ With stocks against exploitation. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  19. ^ Appeal to the German Olympic sponsors. Volkswagen and Adidas have to show their human rights responsibility. (PDF; 232 kB) Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, April 23, 2008, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  20. ↑ Rules of the game for global players. (PDF; 125 kB) Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, May 8, 2009, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  21. ↑ Right of way for climate protection! Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  22. ↑ Group criticism. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  23. ↑ Training. Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, accessed on November 20, 2015 .
  24. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: Allianz gets completely out of coal - DER SPIEGEL - Economy. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  25. ↑ 30 years of critical shareholders - commitment to sustainable business. Accessed March 9, 2020 (German).
  26. ^ Herbert Fromme: Green change. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  27. ↑ "My vote for fair wages". May 8, 2015, accessed on March 9, 2020 (German).
  28. ↑ Speech by Markus Dufner. May 7, 2015, accessed on March 9, 2020 (German).
  29. ↑ Speech by Markus Dufner. May 12, 2016, accessed on March 9, 2020 (German).
  30. ↑ No fair wages for employees in the Puma suppliers. May 4, 2015, accessed on March 9, 2020 (German).
  31. ↑ project. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  32. ^ Protest at the Siemens shareholders' meeting on January 28th. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Carl von Siemens, photos: Juliana Spinola: The dam and the drought: the third largest dam in the world and its consequences. In: Vice. June 12, 2015, accessed March 9, 2020 .
  34. ^ Carl von Siemens: Carl von Siemens fights against Siemens in Brazil . In: THE WORLD . November 15, 2015 ( welt.de [accessed March 9, 2020]).
  35. ↑ Cornelia Meyer: In the Mercedes to the front: How VW and Daimler participate in arms deals. January 31, 2019, accessed on March 9, 2020 (German).
  36. ↑ Jürgen Grässlin: The Daimler Disaster: From a model company to a restructuring case? Droemer Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-426-27267-1 , pp. 126-140 .
  37. ↑ Deutsche Bank distances itself from cluster bomb manufacturers. In: Aktienboard.com. November 9, 2011, accessed November 20, 2015 .
  38. ↑ a b Barbara Happe: Deutsche Bank: Two memorable general meetings and some frustrating ... In: 25 years of critical shareholders. Encouraging people - giving corporate victims a voice . November 2011, p. 19 ( kritischeaktionaere.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ]).
  39. ↑ a b Grete Götze: The yellow killers. Branislav Kapetanovic lost arms and legs in a cluster bomb. Deutsche Bank also earned money from their production . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 25, 2010
  40. ↑ Interview with Branislav Kapetanovic. In: Streubomben.de. November 2008, archived from the original on January 14, 2012 ; accessed on November 15, 2015 .
  41. ^ Andreas Zumach: Ban on cluster munitions. Oslo Convention in danger. In: taz.de . November 8, 2011, accessed November 15, 2015 .
  42. ^ Nils Klawitter: Annual General Meeting: Brazilian fishermen want to protest against ThyssenKrupp plant. January 21, 2010, accessed November 15, 2015 .
  43. ↑ a b The mega-construction site ThyssenKrupp. In: FTD.de . January 21, 2010, archived from the original on February 11, 2013 ; Retrieved November 14, 2011 .
  44. ↑ Christian Russau: Nobody had the fishermen on the bill. The conflict over ThyssenKrupp's TKCSA steelworks in Rio de Janeiro . In: 25 years of critical shareholders. Encouraging people - giving corporate victims a voice , p. 21
  45. ^ John Dugard: Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, New York, November 30, 1973. In: Audiovisual Library Of International Law . November 30, 1973, archived from the original on December 9, 2013 ; accessed on November 15, 2015 .
  46. ↑ a b c Joe Dramiga: South Africa: Apartheid victims sue the German banks. In: SciLogs - Diaries of Science. June 2, 2010, accessed November 14, 2011 .
  47. ↑ Helmut Paschlau: How it all began - from my point of view. Why we brought environmental protection and social justice to the AG general meetings! In: 25 years of critical shareholders. Encouraging people - giving corporate victims a voice . November 2011, p. 7/8 ( kritischeaktionaere.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ]).
  48. ↑ Dorothea Kerschgens: Why Critical Shareholders? In: 25 years of critical shareholders. Encouraging people - giving corporate victims a voice . November 2011, p. 15 ( kritischeaktionaere.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ]).
  49. ^ Editing of new Germany: With urgewald against the Belene nuclear power plant (new Germany). Retrieved March 9, 2020 .