The 2013 Swiss executive pay initiative of 2013 was a successful federal popular initiative in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

to control executive pay of companies listed on the stock market, and to increase shareholders' say in corporate governance. It was one of three questions put to the electorate in the March 2013 referendums. The vote took place on the 3 March 2013, and passed with a majority of 67.9%, with a 46% turnout. The initiative mandates the

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to implement the provisions within one year, pending implementation of the final law. The initiative partly reflected developments in the United States Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act 2010 §957, that banned brokers from voting on their clients' money, and the Stewardship Code 2010 in the United Kingdom, which placed a duty on financial intermediaries to disclose their voting policies and make use of voting power. It also reflected a long running debate in Germany, which had not yet been reformed, about the position of banks. In German, the title of the referendum is the , literally "Against Rip-off" and in French, the , literally "against abusive remuneration".

Background

Due to corporate scandals before the

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, Thomas Minder launched a campaign "against rip-off salaries" (). By 26 February 2008, he had gathered 118,583 signatures to launch a referendum under the Swiss constitutional rules. Minder's concern focused on # the excesses of executive pay # the ability of banks, who in the Swiss (and German) system of shareholding hold all share certificates, to vote by proxy using shares owned by other people, and # the inability of pension beneficiaries and policyholders to determine their deposits were being used for voting. Supporters of the initiative spent 200,000

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, whilst opponents spent 8 million Swiss francs in their campaign to block the reform. The public campaign drew particular attention to the large payouts for executives of

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and major Swiss banks. On 3 March, the referendum results showed that 67.9 per cent of voters supported the reforms. A German initiative followed a month later, and if passed would represent a significant broadening of pay controls in Europe.

Text of the initiative

The translation of the text is as follows.

Results

Significance

The Swiss referendum had an immediate impact on other countries seeking its own reforms. It led to calls by the German

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to introduce similar reforms in Germany and it is quoted in the Bill proposed in Italy on cap-salaries for public employees. Daniel Alpert of

The Century Foundation The Century Foundation (established first as The Cooperative League and then the Twentieth Century Fund) is a progressive think tank headquartered in New York City with an office in Washington, D.C. It was founded as a nonprofit public policy r ...

saw the measures as unnecessary.

Notes

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