All selected members of the Supervisory Board have declared their independence under rule 53 of the Austrian Code of Corporate Governance.
A Supervisory Board member is considered independent if he or she is not in any business or personal relationship with the company or its Management Board that represents a material conflict of interests and is therefore capable of influencing the behaviour of the member.
UNIQA has established the following points as additional criteria for the independence of a Supervisory Board member:
- The Supervisory Board member should not have been a member of the Management Board or a managing employee of the company or a subsidiary of the company in the past five years.
- The Supervisory Board member should not maintain or have maintained within the last year any business relationships significant for said Supervisory Board member with the company or a subsidiary of the company. This also applies to business relationships with companies in which the Supervisory Board member has a significant economic interest but not for the performance of executive functions in the Group.
- The Supervisory Board member should not have been auditor of the partners or a shareholder or employee of the auditing company within the last three years.
- The Supervisory Board member should not be a Management Board member of another company in which a Management Board member of the company is a Supervisory Board member unless one of the companies is a member of the other company’s Group or holds a business interest in the company.
- The Supervisory Board member should not be a member of the Supervisory Board for longer than 15 years. This does not apply to Supervisory Board members who are shareholders with an entrepreneurial stake or who are representing the interests of a party with such a stake.
- The Supervisory Board member should not be a close family relative (direct descendent, spouse, life companion, parent, uncle, aunt, sibling, niece, nephew) of a Management Board member or of persons who are in one of the positions described in the above points.
The rules of procedure regulate the distribution of business and the cooperation of the Management Board. They also describe the notification and reporting obligations of the Management Board with respect to the Supervisory Board and stipulate a catalogue of measures that require approval by the Supervisory Board.
