International Roundtable on Board Level Employee Representation

The ECGI Roundtable on Board Level Employee Representation took place on 25 October at Imperial College Business School in collaboration with the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). The event focused on the role of employees in corporate governance against the backdrop of the recent UK Green Paper on corporate governance.

Board Level Employee Representation (BLER) is a reality in many European countries. In some cases BLER is voluntary, in other cases mandatory. The Roundtable, organised by Professors Marco Becht (Solvay School of Economics and Management) and Franklin Allen (Director of the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis) discussed the different approaches to BLER around Europe with practical examples from the UK and Denmark provided by representatives from companies with employee representation in place.

Discussions were structured around introductory briefings from academics and practitioners designed to prompt further interventions and debate between all attendees. Participants included Lional Fulton (Labour Research Department, London), Horst Eidenmüller (Oxford University), Daniela Weber-Rey (ECGI), Martin Gelter (Fordham University), Steen Thomsen (Copenhagen Business School), Jacob Møllgaard (Vestyjsk Bank), Amira Laila Bada (Finansforbundet), Peter Montagnon (Institute of Business Ethics), Silvana Glibota-Vigo (FirstGroup plc) Jimmy Groombridge (FirstGroup plc) and Ernst Maug (University of Mannheim).

The geographic focus of the discussion highlighted the Nordic model of BLER, which appears to be somewhat less intrusive and more flexible that the German model that is most commonly referred to. Additional focus points included the impact of BLER on corporate behaviour and performance, and an example of successful implementation of BLER in a UK listed company.

The full report from the roundtable on Board Level Employee Representation is expected to be published in the coming weeks and will be accessible on the ECGI website. Click here to visit the event page.

The event was held in collaboration with the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis at Imperial College Business School.