f - Degree to which corporate governance recommendations are followed 

Indicate the degree to which the company follows the recommendations of the Unified Good Governance Code. If any of them are not complied with, explain the recommendations, regulations, practices or criteria that the company applies.

1.The bylaws of listed companies should not place an upper limit on the votes that can be cast by a single shareholder, or impose other obstacles to the takeover of the company by means of share purchases on the market.
See sections: A.9, B.1.22, B.1.23, E.1 and E.2

Compliant

2.When a dominant and a subsidiary company are stock market listed, the two should provide detailed disclosure on:

a) The type of activity they engage in, and any business dealings between them, as well as between the subsidiary and other group companies;
b) The mechanisms in place to resolve possible conflicts of interest.
See sections: C.4 and C.7

Compliant

3. Even when not expressly required under company commercial law, any decisions involving a fundamental corporate change should be submitted to the general shareholders’ meeting for approval or ratification. In particular:

a) The transformation of listed companies into holding companies through the process of subsidiarisation, i.e. reallocating core activities to subsidiaries that were previously carried out by the originating firm, even though the latter retains full control of the former;
b) Any acquisition or disposal of key operating assets that would effectively alter the company’s corporate purpose;
c) Operations that effectively add up to the company’s liquidation.
 

Partially compliant

The company has not incorporated this regulation, on a non-mandatory basis, to its internal rules (Social Bylaws), which does not prevent from complying in practice with said Recommendation.
 

4. Detailed proposals of the resolutions to be adopted at the general shareholders’ meeting, including the information stated in recommendation 28, should be made available at the same time as the publication of the meeting notice.

Compliant

5. Separate votes should be taken at the general shareholders’ meeting on materially separate items, so shareholders can express their preferences in each case, In order for the shareholders to exercise their voting preferences separately. And that said rule is applied, particularly:

The appointment or ratification of directors, with separate voting on each candidate;
Amendments to the bylaws, with votes taken on all Articles or groups of Articles that are materially different.
See section: E.8

Compliant

6. Companies should allow split votes, so financial intermediaries acting as nominees on behalf of different clients can issue their votes according to instructions.
See section: E.4

Compliant

7. The board of directors should perform its duties with unity of purpose and independent judgement, according all shareholders the same treatment. It should be guided at all times by the company’s best interest and, as such, strive to maximise its value over time.
It should likewise ensure that the company abides by the laws and regulations in its dealings with stakeholders; fulfils its obligations and contracts in good faith; respects the customs and good practices of the sectors and territories where it does business; and upholds any additional social responsibility principles it has subscribed to voluntarily.

Compliant

8. The board should see the core components of its mission as to approve the company’s strategy and authorise the organisational resources to carry it forward, and to ensure that management meets the objectives set while pursuing the company’s interests and corporate purpose. As such, the board in full should reserve the right to approve:

a) The company’s general policies and strategies, and in particular:

i) The strategic or business plan, management targets and annual budgets;
ii) Investment and financing policy;
iii) Design of the structure of the corporate group;
iv) Corporate governance policy;
v) Corporate social responsibility policy;
vi) Remuneration and evaluation of senior officers;
vii) Risk control and management, and the periodic monitoring of internal information and control systems.
viii) Dividend policy, as well as the policy and limits applying to treasury stock.
See sections: B.1.10., B.1.13., B.1.14 and D.3

b) The following decisions:

i) On the proposal of the company’s chief executive, the appointment and removal of senior officers, and their compensation clauses.
See section: B.1.14
ii) Directors’ remuneration and, in the case of executive directors, the additional consideration for their management duties and other contract conditions.
See section: B.1.14
iii) The financial information that all listed companies must periodically disclose.
iv) Investments or operations considered strategic by virtue of their amount or special characteristics, unless their approval corresponds to the general shareholders’ meeting;
v) The creation or acquisition of shares in special purpose vehicles or entities resident in countries or territories considered tax havens, and any other transactions or operations of a comparable nature whose complexity might impair the transparency of the group.

c) Transactions which the company conducts with directors, significant shareholders, shareholders with board representation or other persons related thereto (“related-party transactions”).

However, board authorisation need not be required for related-party transactions that simultaneously meet the following three conditions:

1st. They are governed by standard form agreements applied on an across-the-board basis to a large number of clients;
2nd. They go through at market rates, generally set by the person supplying the goods or services;
3rd. Their amount is no more than 1% of the company’s annual revenues.
It is advisable that related-party transactions should only be approved on the basis of a favourable report from the audit committee or some other committee handling the same function; and that the directors involved should neither exercise nor delegate their votes, and should withdraw from the meeting room while the board deliberates and votes.

Ideally the above powers should not be delegated with the exception of those mentioned in b) and c), which may be delegated to the executive committee in urgent cases and later ratified by the full board.
See sections: C.1 and C.6

Compliant

9. In the interests of maximum effectiveness and participation, the board of directors should ideally comprise no fewer then five and no more than fifteen members.
See section: B.1.1

Compliant

10. External directors, proprietary and independent, should occupy an ample majority of board places, while the number of executive directors should be the minimum practical bearing in mind the complexity of the corporate group and the ownership interests they control.
See sections: A.2., A.3., B.1.3 and B.1.14

Compliant

11. In the event that some external director can be deemed neither proprietary nor independent, the company should disclose this circumstance and the links that person maintains with the company or its senior officers, or its shareholders.
See section: B.1.3

Not applicable

12. That among external directors, the relation between proprietary members and independents should match the proportion between the capital represented on the board by proprietary directors and the remainder of the company’s capital.

This proportional criterion can be relaxed so the weight of proprietary directors is greater than would strictly correspond to the total percentage of capital they represent:
 

1. In large cap companies where few or no equity stakes attain the legal threshold for significant shareholdings, despite the considerable sums actually invested.
2. In companies with a plurality of shareholders represented on the board but not otherwise related.
See sections: B.1.3, A.2 and A.3

Compliant

13. The number of independent directors should represent at least one third of all board members.
See section: B.1.3

Compliant

14. The condition of each director should be explained to the shareholders at general meeting of shareholders, which will make or ratify his or her appointment. Such determination should subsequently be confirmed or reviewed in each year’s annual corporate governance report, after verification by the nomination committee. The said report should also disclose the reasons for the appointment of proprietary directors at the urging of shareholders controlling less than 5% of capital; and explain any rejection of a formal request for a board place from shareholders whose equity stake is equal to or greater than that of others applying successfully for a proprietary directorship.
See sections: B.1.3 and B.1 4

Compliant

15. When women directors are few or non existent, the board should state the reasons for this situation and the measures taken to correct it; in particular, the Nomination Committee should take steps to ensure that:

The process of filling board vacancies has no implicit bias against women candidates;
The company makes a conscious effort to include women with the target profile among the candidates for board places.
See sections: B.1.2, B.1.27 and B.2.3

Compliant

16. The chairman, as the person responsible for the proper operation of the board, should ensure that directors are supplied with sufficient information in advance of board meetings, and work to procure a good level of debate and the active involvement of all members, safeguarding their rights to freely express and adopt positions; he or she should organise and coordinate regular evaluations of the board and, where appropriate, the company’s chief executive, along with the chairmen of the relevant board committees.
See section: B.1.42

Compliant

17. When a company’s chairman is also its chief executive, an independent director should be empowered to request the calling of board meetings or the inclusion of new business on the agenda; to coordinate and give voice to the concerns of external directors; and to lead the board’s evaluation of the chairman.
See section: B.1.21

Explanation

The Board of Directors currently comprises fifteen members. The Regulations of the Board of Directors regulate the composition, functions and internal organization of the governing body. Furthermore, the company has an Internal Code of Conduct in Stock Markets applicable to board members, the senior management and any other employees who may be affected by the terms thereof on account of their post or assigned duties. The Regulations of the General Shareholders’ Meeting regulate the formal aspects and internal system for staging shareholders’ meetings. Lastly, the Board of Directors is assisted by its Audit Committee and the Appointments and Remuneration Committee, which both have their own respective Internal Regulations. All these rules and regulations are brought together in a consolidated text of the company’s Internal Good Governance Rules, which is available from the company’s website, www.abengoa.com. Since its inception, the Appointments and Remuneration Committee has been analyzing the structure of the company’s governing bodies and has been working to adapt it to incorporate corporate governance recommendations, paying particular attention to the historic and special configuration of these bodies within Abengoa. In accordance with this analysis, in February 2007 the Committee recommended the creation of the post of coordinating director, coupled with the elimination of the Advisory Committee to the Board of Directors. The first measure was in order to incorporate the most recent corporate governance recommendations, as created in Spain in 2006, whereas the second was proposed because the Committee considered that the Advisory Committee had already fulfilled the function for which it was originally created and that its coexistence with the corporate bodies could lead to conflicts of power. Both proposals were approved at a meeting of the Board of Directors held in February 2007 and at the General Shareholders’ Meeting held on April 15 of the same year appointing Mr. José B. Terceiro in representation of Aplicaciones Digitales S.L., as coordinating director, acting as independent, up to date.

On a final note, in October 2007 the Committee proposed to the Board that it accept the resignation of Mr. Javier Benjumea Llórente from his position as Vice-Chairman, with the consequent revocation of his delegated powers, and likewise accept the appointment of a new natural person to represent Abengoa and the Focus-Abengoa Foundation in those entities or companies in which they have an appointed position.

The Committee then considered it advisable to recommence its study on the number and characteristics of the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors within the current structure of governing bodies.

As a result of this, the Committee thought it necessary for the Vice-Chairman of Abengoa to have the powers conferred by the Spanish Public Limited Companies Act (Ley de Sociedades Anónimas) with regard to the organic representation of the company on the one hand, and, on the other, as a counterweight to the functions of the Chairman within the Board of Directors. On this basis, it considered that the coordinating director – with the functions assigned to that position by the resolutions of the Board of Directors (February 2007) and the General Shareholders’ Meeting (April 2007) – was the ideal figure, given the corporate governance recommendations and the structure of the company, as well as the composition and diversity of its directors. The coordinating director has already been entrusted with the task of coordinating the concerns and motivations of the other Board members, and as such has the power to request that a Board meeting be convened and that new items be included on the agenda. In its role as the visible head of Board members’ interests, it has, more de facto than de jure, a certain representative nature on the Board, and it therefore seemed appropriate to confirm and expand this representation by making the post both institutional and organic.

For the reasons outlined above, the Committee proposed Aplicaciones Digitales, S.L. (Aplidig, represented by Mr José B. Terceiro Lomba), the current coordinating director, as the new Vice-Chairman to the Board of Directors. In addition, and within the functions of organic representation, the current Vice-Chairman, jointly with the Chairman of the Board, was put forward as the physical representative of Abengoa in its capacity as the Chair of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, as well as in any other foundations and institutions in which the company is or must be represented.

In view of the above, on December 10, 2007, the Board of Directors agreed to appoint Aplicaciones Digitales, S.L. (represented by Mr José B. Terceiro Lomba), the current coordinating director, as executive deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors, with the unanimous consent of the independent directors for the company to continue acting as coordinating director in spite of its new appointment as executive deputy Chairman.
In addition, and within the functions of organic representation (conferred by means of a power of attorney granted by the Board of Directors on July 23, 2007), the Vice-Chairman, jointly with the Chairman of the Board of Directors, has been put forward as the physical representative of Abengoa, in its capacity as the Chair of the Board of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, as well as in any other foundations and institutions in which the company is or must be represented.

18. The secretary should take care to ensure that the board’s actions:

a) Adhere to the spirit and letter of laws and their implementing regulations, including those issued by regulatory agencies;
b) Comply with the company bylaws and the regulations of the general shareholders’ meeting, the board of directors and others;
c) Are informed by those good governance recommendations of the Unified Code that the company has subscribed to.
In order to safeguard the independence, impartiality and professionalism of the secretary,his or her appointment and removal should be proposed by the nomination committee and approved by a full board meeting; the relevant appointment and removal procedures being spelled out in the board’s regulation.
See section: B.1.34

Compliant

19. The board should meet with the necessary frequency to properly perform its functions, in accordance with a calendar and agendas set at the beginning of the year, to which each director may propose the addition of other items.
See section: B.1.29

Compliant

20. Director absences should be kept to the bare minimum and quantified in the annual corporate governance report. When directors have no choice but to delegate their vote, they should do so with instructions.
See sections: B.1.28 and B.1.30

Compliant

21. When directors or the secretary express concerns about some proposal or, in the case of directors, about the company’s performance, and such concerns are not resolved at the meeting, the person expressing them can request that they be recorded in the minute book.

Compliant

22. The board in full should evaluate the following points on a yearly basis:

The quality and efficiency of the board’s operation;
Starting from a report submitted by the nomination committee, how well the chairman and chief executive have carried out their duties;
The performance of its committees on the basis of the reports furnished by the same.
See section: B.1.19

Compliant

23. All directors should be able to exercise their right to receive any additional information they require on matters within the board’s competence. Unless the bylaws or board regulations indicate otherwise, such requests should be addressed to the chairman or secretary.
See section: B.1.42

Compliant

24. All directors should be entitled to call on the company for the advice and guidance they need to carry out their duties. The company should provide suitable channels for the exercise of this right, extending in special circumstances to external assistance at the company’s expense.
See section: B.1.41

Compliant

25. Companies should set up orientation programs that may provide new board members with quick and sufficient knowledge of the company and its corporate governance rules and regulations. Companies should make knowledge updating programs available to board members whenever the circumstances deem it advisable.

Compliant

 

26. Companies should require their directors to devote sufficient time and effort to perform their duties effectively, and, as such:
 

a) Directors should apprise the Nomination Committee of any other professional obligations, in case they might detract from the necessary dedication;
b) Companies should lay down rules about the number of directorships their board members can hold.
See sections: B.1.8, B.1.9 and B.1.17

Partially compliant

Section (a) of this recommendation is complied with, in that the Appointments and Remuneration Committee is kept duly informed of the professional duties of Board members, as well as their potential needs with regard to any information they may need to exercise them. In relation to section (b), there are no limits on participation on other Boards, and this aspect is left to the responsible judgement of each director.

27. The proposal for the appointment or renewal of directors which the board submits to the general shareholders’ meeting, as well as provisional appointments by the method of co-optation, should be approved by the board:

a) On the proposal of the nomination committee, in the case of independent directors.
b) Subject to a report from the nomination committee in all other cases.
See section: B.1.2

Compliant

28. Companies should post the following director particulars on their websites, and keep them permanently updated:
 

a) Professional experience and background;
b) Directorships held in other companies, listed or otherwise;
c) An indication of the director’s classification as executive, proprietary or independent; in the case of proprietary directors, stating the shareholder they represent or have links with.
d) The date of their first and subsequent appointments as a company director, and;
e) Shares held in the company and any options on the same.

Compliant

29. Independent directors should not stay on as such for a continuous period of more than 12 years.
See section: B.1.2

Compliant

30. Proprietary directors should resign when the shareholders they represent dispose of their ownership interest in its entirety. If such shareholders reduce their stakes, thereby losing some of their entitlement to proprietary directors, the latter’s number should be reduced accordingly.
See sections: A.2., A.3 and B.1.2

Compliant
 

31. The board of directors should not propose the removal of independent directors before the expiry of their tenure as mandated by the bylaws, except where just cause is found by the board, based on a proposal from the Nomination Committee. In particular, just cause will be presumed when a director is in breach of his or her fiduciary duties or comes under one of the disqualifying grounds enumerated in section III.5 (Definitions) of this Code.

The removal of independents may also be proposed when a takeover bid, merger or similar corporate operation produces changes in the company’s capital structure, in order to meet the proportionality criterion set out in recommendation 12.
See sections: B.1.2, B.1.5 and B.1.26

Compliant

32. Companies should establish rules obliging directors to inform the board of any circumstance that might harm the organisation’s name or reputation, tendering their resignation as the case may be, with particular mention of any criminal charges brought against them and the progress of any subsequent trial.

The moment a director is indicted or tried for any of the crimes stated in Article 124 of the Spanish Companies Act (Ley de Sociedades Anónimas), the board should examine the matter and, in view of the particular circumstances and potential harm to the company’s name and reputation, decide whether or not he or she should be called on to resign. The board should also disclose all such determinations in the annual corporate governance report.
See sections: B.1.43 and B.1.44

Compliant

33. All directors should express clear opposition when they feel a proposal submitted for the board’s approval might damage the corporate interest. In particular, independents and other directors unaffected by the conflict of interest should challenge any decision that could go against the interests of shareholders lacking board representation.

When the board makes material or reiterated decisions about which a director has expressed serious reservations, then he or she must draw the pertinent conclusions. Directors resigning for such causes should set out their reasons in the letter referred to in the next recommendation. The terms of this recommendation should also apply to the secretary of the board; director or otherwise.

Compliant

34. Directors who give up their position before their tenure expires, through resignation or otherwise, should state their reasons in a letter to be sent to all members of the board. Irrespective of whether such resignation is filed as a significant event, the motive for the same must be explained in the annual corporate governance report.
See section: B.1.5

Compliant

35. The company’s remuneration policy, as approved by its board of directors, should specify at least the following points:

a) The amount of the fixed components, itemised where necessary, of board and board committee attendance fees, with an estimate of the fixed annual payment they give rise to;
b) Variable components, in particular:

i) The types of directors they apply to, with an explanation of the relative weight of variable to fixed remuneration items.
ii) Performance evaluation criteria used to calculate entitlement to the award of shares or share options or any performance-related remuneration;
iii) The main parameters and grounds for any system of annual bonuses or other, non cash benefits; and
iv) An estimate of the sum total of variable payments arising from the remuneration policy proposed, as a function of degree of compliance with pre-set targets or benchmarks.

c) The main characteristics of pension systems (for example, supplementary pensions, life insurance and similar arrangements), with an estimate of their amount of annual equivalent cost.
d) The conditions to apply to the contracts of executive directors exercising senior management functions, among them:

i) Duration;
ii) Notice periods; and
iii) Any other clauses covering hiring bonuses, as well as indemnities or ‘golden parachutes’ in the event of early termination of the contractual relation between company and executive director.
See section: B.1.15

Compliant

36. Remuneration comprising the delivery of shares in the company or other companies in the group, share options or other share-based instruments, payments linked to the company’s performance or membership of pension schemes should be confined to executive directors.

The delivery of shares is excluded from this limitation when directors are obliged to retain them until the end of their tenure.
See sections: A.3 and B.1.3

Compliant

37. External directors’ remuneration should sufficiently compensate them for the dedication, abilities and responsibilities that the post entails, but should not be so high as to compromise their independence.

Compliant

38. In the case of remuneration linked to company earnings, deductions should be computed for any qualifications stated in the external auditor’s report.

Compliant

39. In the case of variable awards, remuneration policies should include technical safeguards to ensure they reflect the professional performance of the beneficiaries and not simply the general progress of the markets or the company’s sector, atypical or exceptional transactions or circumstances of this kind.

Compliant

40. The Board should submit a report on the directors’ remuneration policy to the advisory vote of the general shareholders’ meeting, as a separate point on the agenda. This report can be supplied to shareholders separately or in the manner each company sees fit.

The report will focus on the remuneration policy the board has approved for the current year with reference, as the case may be, to the policy planned for future years. It will address all the points referred to in recommendation 35, except those potentially entailing the disclosure of commercially sensitive information. It will also identify and explain the most significant changes in remuneration policy with respect to the previous year, with a global summary of how the policy was applied over the period in question.

The role of the remuneration committee in designing the policy should be reported to the meeting, along with the identity of any external advisors engaged.
See section: B.1.16

Compliant

41. The notes to the annual accounts should list individual directors’ remuneration in the year, including:

a) A breakdown of the compensation obtained by each company director, to include where appropriate:

i) Participation and attendance fees and other fixed director payments;
ii) Additional compensation for acting as chairman or member of a board committee;
iii) Any payments made under profit-sharing or bonus schemes, and the reason for their accrual;
iv) Contributions on the director’s behalf to defined-contribution pension plans, or any increase in the director’s vested rights in the case of contributions to defined-benefit schemes;
v) Any severance packages agreed or paid;
vi) Any compensation they receive as directors of other companies in the group;
vii) The remuneration executive directors receive in respect of their senior management posts;
viii) Any kind of compensation other than those listed above, of whatever nature and provenance within the group, especially when it may be accounted a related-party transaction or when its omission would detract from a true and fair view of the total remuneration received by the director.
 

b) An individual breakdown of deliveries to directors of shares, share options or other share-based instruments, itemised by:

i) Number of shares or options awarded in the year, and the terms set for their execution;
ii) Number of options exercised in the year, specifying the number of shares involved and the exercise price;
iii) Number of options outstanding at the annual close, specifying their price, date and other exercise conditions;
iv) Any change in the year in the exercise terms of previously awarded options.

c) Information on the relation in the year between the remuneration obtained by executive directors and the company’s profits, or some other measure of enterprise results.

Compliant

42. When the company has an executive committee, the breakdown of its members by director category should be similar to that of the board itself. The secretary of the board should also act as secretary to the executive committee.
See sections: B.2.1 and B.2.6

Not applicable

43. The board should be kept fully informed of the business transacted and decisions made by the executive committee. To this end, all board members should receive a copy of the committee’s minutes.

Not applicable

44. In addition to the audit committee mandatory under the Securities Market Act (Ley del Mercado de Valores), the board of directors should form a committee, or two separate committees, of nomination and remuneration.

The rules governing the make-up and operation of the audit committee and the committee or committees of nomination and remuneration should be set forth in the board regulations, and include the following:

a) The board of directors should appoint the members of such committees with regard to the knowledge, aptitudes and experience of its directors and the terms of reference of each committee; discuss their proposals and reports; and be responsible for overseeing and evaluating their work, which should be reported to the first board plenary following each meeting;
b) These committees should be formed exclusively of external directors and have a minimum of three members. Executive directors or senior officers may also attend meetings, for information purposes, at the committees’ invitation.
c) Committees should be chaired by an independent director.
d) They may engage external advisors, when they feel this is necessary for the discharge of their duties.
e) Meeting proceedings should be minuted and a copy sent to all board members.
See sections: B.2.1 and B.2.3

Partially compliant

Barring section b) above, all requirements are duly met. We would refer you to Recommendation 54 as regards the presence of an executive director on the Appointments Committee. In relation to an executive director’s presence on the Audit Committee, and in addition to the explanation provided under point B.1.21 above (independent director designated as coordinating director and subsequently appointed vice-chairman, who will remain as coordinating director following the unanimous consent of the remaining independent directors to such effect), we would add that their seat on the Audit Committee is due (leaving aside their knowledge and experience in matters of accounting and auditing) to the wishes of the independent directors, given that the executive director acts as a nexus between such independent directors (irrespective of whether they sit on such committees and particularly insofar as they don’t) and the committee (and also the Appointments Committee).

45. The job of supervising compliance with internal codes of conduct and corporate governance rules should be entrusted to the audit committee, the nomination committee or, as the case may be, separate compliance or corporate governance committees.

Compliant

46. All members of the audit committee, particularly its chairman, should be appointed with regard to their knowledge and background in accounting, auditing and risk management matters.
 

Compliant

47. Listed companies should have an internal audit function, under the supervision of the audit committee, to ensure the proper operation of internal reporting and control systems.

Compliant

48. The head of internal audit should present an annual work programme to the Audit Committee; report to it directly on any incidents arising during its implementation; and submit an activities report at the end of each year.

Compliant

49. Control and risk management policy should specify at least:
The different types of risk (operational, technological, financial, legal, reputational…) the company is exposed to, with the inclusion under financial or economic risks of contingent liabilities and other off-balance-sheet risks;
The determination of the risk level the company sees as acceptable;
Measures in place to mitigate the impact of risk events should they occur;
The internal reporting and control systems to be used to control and manage the above risks, including contingent liabilities and off-balance-sheet risks.
See section: D

Compliant

50. The audit committee’s role should be:

1. With respect to internal control and reporting systems:

a) To supervise the preparation process and monitor the integrity of the financial information on the company and, if applicable, the group, and to verify compliance with regulatory requirements, the appropriate boundaries of the scope of consolidation and the correct application of accounting principles.
b) Periodically review the systems for the internal monitoring and management of risks, so that the principal risks are identified, managed and properly disclosed.
c) Monitor the independence and efficacy of the internal audit function; propose the selection, appointment, reappointment and removal of the head of internal audit; propose the department’s budget; receive regular report-backs on its activities; and verify that senior management are acting on the findings and recommendations of its reports.
d) Establish and supervise a mechanism whereby staff can report, confidentially and, if necessary, anonymously, any irregularities they detect in the course of their duties, in particular financial or accounting irregularities, with potentially serious implications for the firm.

2. With respect to the external auditor:

a) To submit to the Board proposals for the selection, appointment, reappointment and removal of the external auditor, and the terms and conditions of its engagement.
b) To receive regular information from the external auditor on the progress and findings of the audit plan and to check that senior management are acting on its recommendations.
c) Monitor the independence of the external auditor, to which end:

i) The company should notify any change of auditor to the CNMV as a significant event, accompanied by a statement of any disagreements arising with the outgoing auditor and the reasons for the same.
ii) The Committee should ensure that the company and the auditor adhere to current regulations on the provision of non-audit services, the limits on the concentration of the auditor’s business and, in general, other requirements designed to safeguard auditors’ independence;
iii) The Committee should investigate the issues giving rise to the resignation of any external auditor.

d) In the case of groups, the Committee urges the group auditor to take on the auditing of all component companies.
See sections: B.1.35, B.2.2, B.2.3 and D.3

Compliant

51. The audit committee should be empowered to meet with any company employee or manager, even ordering their appearance without the presence of another senior officer.

Compliant

52. The audit committee should prepare information on the following points from recommendation 8 for input to board decision-making:

a) The financial information that all listed companies must periodically disclose. The committee should ensure that interim statements are drawn up under the same accounting principles as the annual statements and, to this end, may ask the external auditor to conduct a limited review.
b) The creation or acquisition of shares in special purpose vehicles or entities resident in countries or territories considered tax havens, and any other transactions or operations of a comparable nature whose complexity might impair the transparency of the group.
c) Related-party transactions, except where their scrutiny has been entrusted to some other supervision and control committee.
See sections: B.2.2 and B.2.3

Compliant

53. The board of directors should seek to present the annual accounts to the General Shareholders’ Meeting without reservations or qualifications in the audit report. Should such reservations or qualifications exist, both the Chairman of the Audit Committee and the auditors should give a clear account to shareholders of their scope and content.
See section: B.1.38

Compliant

54. The majority of nomination committee members – or nomination and remuneration committee members as the case may be – should be independent directors.
See section: B.2.1

Compliant

55. The nomination committee should have the following functions in addition to those stated in earlier recommendations:

a) Evaluate the balance of skills, knowledge and experience on the board, define the roles and capabilities required of the candidates to fill each vacancy, and decide the time and dedication necessary for them to properly perform their duties.
b) Examine or organise, in appropriate form, the succession of the chairman and chief executive, making recommendations to the board so the handover proceeds in a planned and orderly manner.
c) Report on the senior officer appointments and removals which the chief executive proposes to the board.
d) Report to the board on the gender diversity issues discussed in recommendation 14 of this code.
See section: B.2.3

Compliant

56. The nomination committee should consult with the company’s chairman and chief executive, especially on matters relating to executive directors.

Any board member may suggest directorship candidates to the nomination committee for its consideration.

Compliant

57. The remuneration committee should have the following functions in addition to those stated in earlier recommendations:

a) Make proposals to the board of directors regarding:

i) The remuneration policy for directors and senior officers;
ii) The individual remuneration and other contractual conditions of executive directors;
iii) The standard conditions for senior officer employment contracts.

b) Oversee compliance with the remuneration policy set by the company.
See sections: B.1.14 and B.2.3

Compliant

58. The remuneration committee should consult with the chairman and chief executive, especially on matters relating to executive directors and senior officers.

Compliant