Brussels, 15/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - Presenting his new draft directive on takeover bids to the Competitiveness Council, Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said that he was prepared to be "reasonably flexible and open to dialogue" over "multiple voting rights".
At the Council, Germany reiterated its reservations on maintaining these "multiple voting rights" associated with certain shares, whereas the directive would eliminate certain possibilities of defence for company managers against hostile takeovers. The Commissioner explained that in fact maintaining these multiple voting rights did not fully ensure a "level playing field" for all, but that according to his legal services it was impossible to do otherwise without forcing Member states into constitutional changes that would make adoption of the directive impossible. He did, however, say that he would be flexible and that he would wait for the outcome of the hearing scheduled for early-December by the European Parliament to review the question.