Grounds for change. In the preamble, Hannover Re gives its reasons for adopting this new legal form, the primary goal being to have a more flexible structure to easily adapt the regulations coming from the Solvency II European directive adopted in 2009. The latter aims to improve the link between the risks undertaken by insurance firms and the mandatory minimum level of net assets owned by these companies. Since the directive provides for several forms of implementation depending on the country, insurance firms can be tempted to move its headquarters to a country where regulations suits them better, which is easier to do with a SE, as the preamble explicitly reads. “In early 2012, as they should, rumors started going around about the fact that Hannover Rück intended to move its headquarters to another country, which caused some internal turmoil. But since then, the management and supervisory board have provided guarantees that that wouldn’t be the case” Lemcke says.
Hannover Re: agreement on employee involvement in the European Company
On May 3, 2012, the general assembly of Hannover Re (Hannover Rückversicherung), the German reinsurance company, one of the major reinsurance companies in the world, agreed to adopt the legal status of European Company (SE). On January 23, the special negotiating body (SNB) in charge of defining the modalities to involve employees in the future SE – a Community requirement prior to registration – signed an agreement with the company’s management to define the modalities for employee representation in the company, notably by setting up the SE’s WC. Finally, on March 19, 2013, Hannover Re SE registered with the Hanover register of companies, thus completing the transformation. The agreement shows that Hannover RE isn’t doing this to avoid German co-management rules. Besides, the list of issues where the SE’s WC must be informed and consulted is unusually long and varied. Martin Lemcke, in charge of “co-management” for the Verdi services union and member of the SNB, says that the agreement reached is “extremely fair.” He accepted to comment it for Planet Labor. (Ref. 130349)
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