General Meeting, Voting Rights and Admission
General Meetings are held at the place where the Company has its official seat, in Amsterdam or at Schiphol Airport (municipality of Haarlemmermeer), the Netherlands. The Articles of Association provide that at least one annual General Meeting shall be held within six months after the close of each fiscal year. Additional extraordinary General Meetings may be held whenever our Board of Directors deems such to be necessary. Shareholders representing alone or in aggregate at least one-tenth of our issued and outstanding share capital may, pursuant to the DCC, request that a General Meeting be convened. If our Board of Directors has not taken the steps necessary to ensure that a General Meeting will be held within the relevant statutory period after the request, the requesting persons may, at his/her/their request, be authorized by a court in preliminary relief proceedings to convene a General Meeting. The court shall disallow the application if it does not appear that the applicants have previously requested our Board of Directors to convene a General Meeting and our Board of Directors has not taken the necessary steps so that a General Meeting could be held within six weeks after the request.
Within three months of it becoming apparent to our Board of Directors that our equity has decreased to an amount equal to or lower than one-half of the paid-in and called-up capital, a General Meeting would be held to discuss any requisite measures.
We will give notice of any General Meeting by publication on our website and furthermore, to the extent required, in another manner in accordance with the applicable stock exchange regulations. The notice convening any General Meeting must include, among other items, an agenda indicating the place and date of the meeting, the items for discussion and voting, the proceedings for registration including the registration date, as well as any proposals for the agenda made by the Board of Directors or shareholders holding at least 3% of the issued share capital. For an annual General Meeting, the agenda shall include, among other things, the adoption of the annual accounts, appropriation of our profits and proposals relating to the composition of our Board of Directors, including the filling of any vacancies in our Board of Directors.
Pursuant to Dutch law, shareholders holding at least 3% of our issued and outstanding share capital have a right to request our Board of Directors to include items on the agenda of any General Meeting. Our Board of Directors must agree to these requests, provided that (i) the request was made in writing and motivated, and (ii) the request was received by the Chair of our Board of Directors at least 60 days prior to the date of a General Meeting.
No resolutions shall be adopted on items other than those which have been included in the agenda. In accordance with the DCGC, a shareholder may include an item on the agenda only after consulting our Board of Directors in that respect. If one or more shareholders intends to request that an item be put on the agenda that may result in a change in the company’s strategy, our Board of Directors may invoke a response time of a maximum of 180 days until the day of a General Meeting. In addition, pursuant to the DCC, our Board of Directors may invoke a statutory cooling-off period up to a maximum of 250 days (wettelijke bedenktijd). For the Company, this means that the new rules will apply in case:
- shareholders requesting our Board of Directors to have a General Meeting consider a proposal for the appointment, suspension or dismissal of one or more directors, or a proposal for the amendment of one or more provisions in the Articles of association relating thereto; or
- a public offering of shares in the capital of the Company is announced or made without the bidder and the Company having been reached agreement about the offering; and
- only if our Board of Directors also considers the relevant situation to be substantially contrary to the interests of the Company and its affiliated enterprises.
If our Board of Directors invokes such a cooling-off period, this causes the powers of the General Meeting to appoint, suspend or dismiss directors (and to amend the Articles of Association in this respect) to be suspended.
General Meetings are presided over by the chairperson or, if he/she is absent, by the vice chairperson of the Board of Directors. If both the chairperson and the vice chairperson are absent, the non-executive directors present at the meeting shall appoint one of them to be chairperson. Board members may attend a General Meeting. In these meetings, they have an advisory vote. The chairperson of the meeting may decide at his/her discretion to admit other persons to the meeting.
The external auditor of the Company shall attend a General Meeting in which the annual accounts are discussed.
Our Board of Directors must give notice of a General Meeting, by at least such number of days prior to the day of the meeting as required by Dutch law, which is currently forty-two days.
Shareholders (as well as other persons with voting rights or meeting rights) may attend a General Meeting, to address the General Meeting and, in so far as they have such right, to exercise voting rights pro rata to its shareholding, either in person or by proxy. Shareholders may exercise these rights, if they are the holders of shares on the registration date which is currently the 28th day before the day of a General Meeting, and they or their proxy have notified our Board of Directors of their intention to attend a General Meeting in writing at the address and by the date specified in the notice of said meeting.
All shareholders, and each usufructuary and pledgee to whom the right to vote on our shares accrues, are entitled, in person or represented by a proxy authorized in writing, to attend and address a General Meeting and exercise voting rights pro rata to their shareholding. Shareholders may exercise their rights if they are the holders of our shares on the record date as required by Dutch law, which is currently the 28th day before the day of a General Meeting, and they or their proxy have notified us of their intention to attend such General Meeting in writing or by any other electronic means that can be reproduced on paper ultimately at a date set for that purpose by our Board of Directors which date may not be earlier than the seventh day prior to such General Meeting, specifying such person’s name and the number of shares for which such person may exercise the voting rights and/or meeting rights at such General Meeting. The convocation notice shall state the record date and the manner in which the persons entitled to attend a General Meeting may register and exercise their rights.
Each ordinary share confers the right on the holder to cast one vote at the General Meeting. Shareholders may vote by proxy. The voting rights attached to any shares held by us are suspended as long as they are held in treasury. Nonetheless, the holders of a right of usufruct (vruchtgebruik) in shares belonging to another and the holders of a right of pledge in respect of ordinary shares held by us are not excluded from any right they may have to vote on such ordinary shares, if the right of usufruct (vruchtgebruik) or the right of pledge was granted prior to the time such ordinary share was acquired by us. We may not cast votes in respect of a share in respect of which there is a right of usufruct (vruchtgebruik) or a right of pledge. Shares which are not entitled to voting rights pursuant to the preceding sentences will not be taken into account for the purpose of determining the number of shareholders that vote and that are present or represented, or the amount of the share capital that is provided or that is represented at a General Meeting.
Decisions of the General Meeting are taken by an absolute majority of votes cast, except where Dutch law or the Articles of Association provide for a qualified majority or unanimity. In accordance with Dutch law and generally accepted business practices, our Articles of Association do not provide quorum requirements generally applicable to a General Meeting. To this extent, our practice varies from the requirement of Nasdaq Listing Rule 5620(c), which requires an issuer to provide in its bylaws for a generally applicable quorum, and that such quorum may not be less than one-third of the outstanding voting stock.
Members of our Board of Directors may attend a General Meeting in which they have an advisory role. The voting rights attached to shares are suspended as long as such shares are held by us.
Two General Meetings were held in 2023.
On February 27, 2023, an extraordinary General Meeting was held, to appoint Steve Krognes as a non-executive director to the Board of Directors for a term ending on the 2027 annual General Meeting.
In the 2023 General Meeting, our annual report and annual accounts for the fiscal year 2022 were approved, Mr. J. Donald deBethizy was reappointed as a non-executive director to the Board of Directors for a term of two years, and the Board of Directors was authorized to issue shares and grant rights to subscribe for shares in our share capital for up to 10% of the outstanding share capital at the date of the meeting and for a period of 18 months from the meeting and to limit or exclude statutory pre-emptive rights with regard to such (rights to subscribe for) shares, and the appointment of Deloitte Accountants B.V. as the Company’s auditor for the 2023 fiscal year was approved.