Women continue to be significantly under-represented on the boards of directors of companies in every Member State within the European Union and the United Kingdom.

In recent years, more and more European countries have introduced statutory gender quotas to balance gender on company boards. The progress year-on-year has, however, been rather slow. The legal provisions in those countries introducing quotas can differ greatly, particularly with regard to sanctions for failure to comply with a quota.

It has become clear that the voluntary approach of countries to gender balance on company boards has had limited success, with the exception of the United Kingdom, which has made steady progress year-on-year.

With regard to the European Union, we have witnessed how legislative measures with binding gender quotas taken at the national level have a clear impact: while soft quotas have increased the representation of women from 12.4% in 2010 to 30.7% in 2022, binding quotas have been much more effective, with board representation for women nearly quadrupling from 10.6% in 2010 to 38.8% in 2022. In contrast, the average for countries with no quotas at all has only inched upward, from 13.2% in 2010 to 18.0% in 2022.^[1]

In light of the broad disparity between Member States, the European Parliament has formally adopted the new EU Directive on improving gender balance among non-executive directors (the so-called EU Women on Boards Directive).^[2]

The Directive frames the Commission’s work on gender equality and aims to strengthen gender diversity in corporate boardrooms with binding standards for all European Member States.

This publication focuses on the impact of the EU Women on Boards Directive on the governance regulations across a benchmark of European countries in which A&O Shearman is present (i.e. Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Spain) and summarises the respective approaches. It also illustrates similar new regulation on board diversity targets for listed companies in the United Kingdom to provide a complete overview of the legislation in this area.

Contents of the report

• Do the targets of the Directive have to be implemented in your home country?
• Gender diversity on corporate boards and why it matters
• Legislative timeline of the Directive
• Analysis of the Directive
• Women in the boardroom
• Overview of the respective approaches in the U.K.

Footnotes

^{[1] forbes.com/sites/paologaudiano/2022/11/30/eu-law-set-to-increase-gender-diversity-on-company-boards/?sh=4bd5c50d33ea (last accessed on 26.09.2024, 08:30 Uhr)}

^{[2] DIRECTIVE (EU) 2022/2381 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 November 2022 on improving the gender balance among directors of listed companies and related measures; text of the directive available via the website of the European Parliament (link added on 9 December 2022): eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/ PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022L2381&qid=1670602624494&from=DE}