The Council of the EU adopted several changes to the Shareholders’ Rights Directive of 2007. The changes are relevant to listed companies in the EU.

The changes are aimed at encouraging shareholder engagement, in particular in the long term, and relate to identification of shareholders, transmission of information, facilitation of the exercise of shareholders rights, transparency of institutional investors, asset managers and proxy advisors, remuneration of directors and related party transactions. Rules on enhanced voting rights or dividend rights (loyalty rights), which were included in an earlier version of the proposal for the Directive, were rejected by the European Parliament in July 2015.