The Supervisory Board advises the Management Board in its strategic planning and projects. It participates in the decisions assigned to it by statute, by the company articles and by its rules of procedure. The Supervisory Board is responsible for supervising the management of the company by the Management Board.
A Committee for Board Affairs of the Supervisory Board has been formed for handling the relationships between the company and the members of its Management Board relating to employment and salary.
The appointed Working Committee of the Supervisory Board shall be called upon for decisions only if the urgency of the issue will not allow the decision to wait until the next meeting of the Supervisory Board. The evaluation of the urgency is the responsibility of the chairman. The decisions passed must be reported in the next meeting of the Supervisory Board. The Working Committee decides in principle on all issues that are the responsibility of the Supervisory Board; issues of particular important or stipulated by law are excepted, however.
The Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board has the same membership as the Working Committee. The Audit Committee, including the activities of the Working Committee in its function as Audit Committee, performs the duties assigned to it by law.
Finally, the Investment Committee advises the Management Board with regard to its investment policy; it has no decision-making authority.
At its two meetings, the Committee for Board Affairs dealt with the legal employment formalities of the members of the Management Board.
The Working Committee mainly discussed the profit developments of the Group, assessed the company strategy and made one decision regarding steps to be taken by circulating it in writing. The committee had five meetings in 2010.
The Audit Committee, including the Working Committee which also met in its function as Audit Committee, met for six meetings, dealt with all audit documents and the Management Board’s proposed appropriation of profit and particularly addressed the reports of Internal Auditing regarding audit areas and significant audit discoveries based on executed audits.
The Investment Committee had five meetings about the capital investment strategy and questions of the capital structure.
The various chairmen of the committees informed the members of the Supervisory Board about the meetings and their committee’s work.
