Virtual shareholder general meetings in the age of COVID-19

Travel restrictions, social distancing protocols and general disruptions to daily life have made it nearly impossible to hold in-person shareholder meetings in most jurisdictions. As such, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of virtual shareholder meetings around the world. Most remarkably, this shift has been seen even in markets that had previously only allowed for in-person shareholder meetings. In this article, we discuss the important factors that boards of directors and management teams alike should weigh, particularly as lockdowns continue across many countries, including technology, regulatory and corporate governance considerations.