Assemblywoman Kim Hyunjung Proposes Capital Markets Act Amendment to Prevent Concentration of Shareholder Meetings

A bill has been proposed to address the issue of shareholder meetings being concentrated in a specific period. The intent is to disperse shareholder meeting schedules to encourage investors' attendance and active exercise of voting rights.

On July 23, Assemblywoman Kim Hyunjung, a member of the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, sponsored the amendment to the Capital Markets Act and Financial Investment Business Act, which includes these provisions.

The amendment aims to improve the tradition of shareholder meetings being concentrated at the end of March and to create an environment where shareholders can participate in meetings and exercise their voting rights. Previously, institutional and individual investors had difficulty attending multiple listed companies’ shareholder meetings, as most were held at the end of March. This resulted in limitations on exercising voting rights and led to criticism that these meetings became mere formalities.

The amendment sponsored by Assemblywoman Kim mandates that listed companies must report board resolutions to convene regular general meetings of shareholders directly to the Korea Exchange, and enables the exchange to recommend changes to the meeting date to help distribute schedules. If a listed company does not accept the exchange’s recommendation, it must submit an explanation for doing so.

Assemblywoman Kim stated, “This amendment is an institutional mechanism designed to promote the dispersal of shareholder meetings by listed companies and guarantee substantive shareholder participation and the exercise of voting rights. Going forward, we will continue efforts to improve the system to establish a more shareholder-friendly capital market environment and realize the Korea Premium.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.