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News memo
Since 18 June 2020, CompuGroup Medical (CGM), based in Koblenz, has been operating as an SE & Co. KGaA (partnership limited by shares). The publicly listed family company develops software for the healthcare sector and had converted to a European Company (SE) in February 2016, thereby freezing the one-third employee participation in the supervisory board (see report in EWC News 1/2016). Now there is no longer any co-determination in the SE and the two employee representatives on the SE supervisory board have lost their seats.
Although the KGaA is now subject to German full-parity co-determination, the supervisory board has fewer rights than in an SE. Of the twelve members - following the elections which are to be held shortly - four employee representatives will be appointed from the German works councils and two from the trade unions. The SE works council with 20 members has also been dissolved. The workforce can request to set up a "normal" European works council, but negotiations can take up to three years. In the meantime, there will no longer be any transnational representation for the sites in 15 European countries. CGM has 6,300 employees worldwide and also has a presence in South Africa, Turkey and the USA. At seed producer KWS Saat, which also converted into an SE & Co. KGaA in July 2019, the SE works council was converted into an EWC and was able to continue working seamlessly (see report in EWC News 4/2019).
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4/2020
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