OREANDA-NEWS. October 18, 2012. E.ON continues to make good progress with its conversion into a European stock corporation (Societas Europaea / SE). Well ahead of the legal deadline, an agreement has been signed on employee participation in the future E.ON SE. It deals with codetermination at European level by the future SE Works Council and employee representation on the Supervisory Board. The agreement is the outcome of constructive talks between the Special Negotiation Body, which comprises 25 employee representatives from 19 countries, and company representatives.

Under the agreement, employees from all European countries where E.ON operates will in future be represented on the SE Works Council. The number of representatives is determined by the number of employees in the respective country. The SE Works Council has to be informed and heard on all cross-border codetermination subjects. In addition, the SE Works Council nominates the employee representatives for the SE Supervisory Board. The latter will have 12 members, half of them being employee representatives.

Representing the employees, Eugen Luha from Romania, Willem Vis from the Netherlands as well as Gabriele Gratz, Erhard Ott, Klaus-Dieter Raschke and Eberhard Schomburg from Germany will be members of the Supervisory Board. The new Group Works Council Chair, Michael Mittmann, will join the Supervisory Board in 2014 at the latest. This composition is in line with the agreed principle that employee representatives on the SE Supervisory Board must come from at least three different countries. The shareholders will be represented by Baroness Denise Kingsmill, Ulrich Lehner, Rene Obermann, Karen de Segundo, Theo Siegert and Werner Wenning. This means that the share of women on the future SE Supervisory Board is 25 %. The Supervisory Board members come from four different countries. It is intended that a vice-chair of the Supervisory Board will continue to be an employee representative.

Eberhard Schomburg, Chair of the Special Negotiation Body and the E.ON European Works Council, welcomed the agreement: "I am very pleased that employees from all European countries where E.ON operates and from various business sectors will participate in the future SE Works Council and be able to discuss key Group subjects with the company. For this purpose, we have enlarged the existing European Works Council to include colleagues from all countries not represented until now."

Johannes Teyssen, CEO of E.ON AG, views the agreement as a major milestone on the road to a company with an even stronger European orientation: "We have achieved our goal of finding a truly European solution for employee representatives in E.ON SE that is tailored to E.ON's needs. For the first time employees across Europe can determine their representatives on our Supervisory Board. The fact that the smaller Supervisory Board will include three women and four members from outside Germany means that the diversity existing at E.ON will in future also be reflected in our top body."

The registered office of E.ON SE will remain in Germany. The E.ON Group's business operations will continue to be directed from Dusseldorf.