Newsletter
PROXY RULES AND NON-VOTING PREFERENCE SHARES
Article 6 Paragraph 1 of the Rules Governing the Use of Proxies for Attendance at Shareholders Meetings of Public Companies provides that any person or entity that continuously holds issued shares in a company for at least one year, and meets any of certain conditions (such as holding at least 10% of the company''s total issued shares) may hire a trust enterprise or an agent for stock affairs to act as a solicitor of proxies, and the shares represented by the agent may exceed 3% of the company''s total issued shares.
In an order dated 14 March 2006, the Financial Supervisory Commission stated that non-voting preferred stock held by a shareholder should not be included in calculating the total number of issued shares required for compliance with the conditions referred to above. Moreover, prior to the conversion of non-voting convertible pre-ferred stock, it remains non-voting stock; for such shares, the one-year shareholding period provided for by Article 6 Paragraph 1 of the Rules does not begin until the date on which they are converted into common stock.