Provision 59.4 of the Company law states that the regular shareholders meeting shall be called by the Board of Directors (in its absence the executive body) and held within four (4) months following the end of each fiscal year of a company; provision 20.1.8 of the Securities market law states that the relevant documents and information regarding the shareholders’ meeting must be submitted to the FRC and the stock exchange within three business days of such meetings.
The registration date for producing the name list of the shareholders who have the right to participate in the shareholders’ meeting shall be determined by the party stated by the provision 64.2 of the Company law and as regulated by the provision 3.5 of the “Regulation regarding the announcement of the delivery of the shareholders’ meeting of the Joint stock company”, the date shall be determined within 10 days after the meeting announcement has been publicly announced.
For shareholders the regular meeting is important in a way that it is an opportunity to exercises their rights to obtain information regarding the operations of the company and the financial profits; meeting the members of the company board and get answers for questions they are interested in as well as voting for issues that will be discussed.
The study of the companies which held shareholders’ meeting shows that, last year over 70 percent of the regular shareholders’ meeting of the joint stock companies were held during the last two weeks of the April and the majority of the joint stock companies have held their meeting on the last day of the April or on the 30th of April. Consequently, meetings of the joint stock companies took place on the same day which lead to the limited opportunity for the shareholders to participate in the meetings as usual.
In addition, according to the company law, if it is stated otherwise in the company code, the Board of Directors of the Joint stock company shall consist of nine or more members; the candidate for the BoD shall be selected having registered by the Candidate committee and the candidate shall be able to directly nominate himself.
However, the joint stock companies continue to nominate 9 persons as candidates and select them at the shareholders’ meeting.
Therefore, it is advised to consider the abovementioned cases when organizing the shareholders’ meeting; including skills and knowledge; education; work experience and in order to select the members of Board of directors. It creates a possibility to select from sufficient number of candidates.