Schaub lends his support to corporate blacklisting in EU

Date: 12/02/04

EU INVESTORS should take a leaf out their US counterparts' book and issue blacklists of badly run companies, according to Alex Schaub, head of the Commission's internal market directorate-general (DG).

The German says that EU investors should come up with their own versions of the "focus list" of poorly governed companies that America's largest public pension scheme, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, publishes each year.

"I'm convinced blacklisting is an extremely important step to make Europe's companies act according to a global standard," he told European Voice's sister magazine Corporate Board Member Europe.

He urged CEOs to put greater effort into communicating with their shareholders: "They need to work behind the scenes and hold more face-to-face meetings, instead of just making big announcements at their annual meeting," added Schaub, whose DG oversees EU corporate governance, accounting, auditing and the financial services sectors.

The Head of the European Commission's Internal Market Directorate General, Alex Schaub, proposes European investors should issue blacklists of badly run companies.