Revised Shareholder Rights Directive (EU) 2017/828 – Costs Disclosure Document
The revised Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II) and its associated implementing regulation are intended to address the following:
- Interaction between companies with EU registered offices (‘companies’) and the shares of which are admitted to trading on an EU regulated market, and holders of their shares (‘shareholders’)
- Transparency of institutional investors, asset managers and proxy advisors
- Remuneration and related party transactions
Where it is an intermediary in relation to such shareholdings, RBC Investor & Treasury Services (RBC I&TS) supports the following in accordance with SRD II:
- Right for companies to identify their shareholders (Article 3a)
- Transmission of information between companies and shareholders to enable the shareholders to exercise their shareholder rights (Article 3b)
- Facilitating exercise of shareholders’ rights (Article 3c)
- Non-discrimination, proportionality and transparency of any related costs for providing these services (Article 3d)
The costs disclosure which RBC Investor & Treasury Services (RBC I&TS), as an intermediary, is required to make under Article 3d of SRD II is available below. RBC I&TS entities covered by this disclosure include: RBC Investor Services Bank France S.A., RBC Investor Services Bank S.A., Succursale di Milano, RBC Investor Services Bank S.A., RBC Investor Services Trust – UK Branch, RBC Investor Services Trust., RBC Investor Services Trust Australian Branch, RBC Investor Services Bank France S.A., RBC Investor Services Bank S.A, Hong Kong Branch, RBC Investor Services Bank S.A. Dublin Branch, RBC Investor Services Bank S.A., Esch-sur-Alzette, Zurich Branch
The information below outlines how RBC I&TS is addressing the costs and charges under the following categories:
- Any costs associated with shareholder identification requirements (Article 3a)
This is a new service regarding the provision of timely shareholder information to companies on request. The cost of this service will be borne by RBC I&TS as your intermediary and service provider. - Increase, if any, of costs with respect to transmission of information between companies and shareholders to enable the shareholders to exercise their shareholder rights (Article 3b)
RBC I&TS currently provides its clients with corporate action event notifications as part of its core custody service. The cost of event notifications is part of this service and is already included in the rate cards negotiated with our clients. - Costs to facilitate the exercise of shareholder rights (Article 3c)
All RBC I&TS clients are encouraged to leverage our proxy voting offering via Broadridge’s ProxyEdge service. An agreed rate card is in place.
Any differences between the charges set out in the above rate cards which are levied between domestic and cross-border exercise of rights reflect the greater complexity or number of steps involved in facilitating the cross-border exercise of rights, which may include, for example, the use of additional intermediaries, filing valid local tax reclaims (where required) and taking account of different local language requirements, time zones and/or other local market requirements, and the associated variation in actual costs incurred by RBC I&TS for delivering such services.
This disclosure information may be updated from time to time. Please ensure that you consider the most recent version of the disclosure maintained on our website, which will supersede and override any previous version.
If you have any further questions, please contact your RBC I&TS representative.
Dated: July 31, 2020