Further amendments to the law on quota for women
> October 2014

The planned law on appointing members of supervisory boards in a gender-neutral way, generally known as the law on quota for women, has always given rise to further discussions. Due to some criticism the draft law has been amended twice in September. The first amendment concerns the level of representation for each sex in executive positions. Now, the ministerial draft bill of German Federal Minister for Family Affairs Schwesig and Federal Minister of Justice Maas provides a gender quota of 30% for representation in supervisory boards only for companies quoted on the stock exchange and companies with equal representation. All other companies are expected to set themselves binding targets for supervisory boards, executive boards and top management levels. With this, the ministerial draft bill no longer sticks to the original duty of companies to admit at least one additional representative of the hitherto underrepresented sex to the executive board. The second amendment regards the number of equal opportunities commissioners. While the draft bill had still provided to increase their number considerably, this demand has now been cancelled because of the high costs involved and the considerable administrative burden.