COMPANY LAW: MCCREEVY AIMS TO SCRAP MULTIPLE VOTING RIGHTS.

One share, one vote.

Many EU companies give certain shareholders a preferred status by granting multiple voting rights, capping individual shareholdings and issuing different share classes. Mr McCreevy was quoted by the Financial Times on October 17 as saying the proposal could be controversial, would take time to materialise and Brussels would have to act cautiously.

Multiple rights allow minority shareholders to control companies with little capital investment and are a merger defence common in Scandinavian countries. "It is my goal to get the one share, one vote principle accepted across the 25 member states", Mr McCreevy said in the interview. "I come from this angle: the...