Blockchain and Smart Contracting for the Shareholder Community

Blockchain and Smart Contracting for the Shareholder Community

Christoph Van Der Elst, Anne Lafarre

Series number :

Serial Number: 
412/2018

Date posted :

July 30 2018

Last revised :

July 28 2018
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • shareholders • 
  • shareholder information • 
  • blockchain • 
  • distributed ledger technology • 
  • Central Security Depository (CSD) • 
  • proxy voting • 
  • General meeting

Current shareholder engagement systems face large classical inefficiencies. First, due to the large chains of intermediaries in the current securities models, transaction costs are high and shareholder votes and other information are not always correctly transmitted between shareholders and issuers.

Recent cases including DNick Holding and T Rowe Price show the ‘absurdness’ of the current systems. The Shareholder Rights Directive II addresses these problems and the draft Regulation already hints at modern technologies to increase the transparency and verifiability of shareholder engagement. Next, the current shareholder engagement system enables different opportunities for different types of shareholders, creating inequalities and hindering shareholder democracy. The solution to these substantial problems, lies in a state-of-the-art technology: in this contribution we argue that blockchain technology can solve these current inefficiencies shareholders and companies face. Using a permissioned blockchain, information can be stored in a verifiable and immutable way, with a consensus mechanism tailored to its purpose. The large amount of initiatives and prototypes of blockchain proxy voting and trading, including the legislative initiatives that were initiated in the past two years show the merits of using this state-of-the-art technology. The Europe Union should incorporate this technology in its legislation, like the CSD regulation, for staying technologically proof in this globalized market.
 

Authors

Dr.
Real name:
Anne Lafarre
Tilburg University