Shareholder Jürgen Grässlin
Concerning Item 1 of the Agenda: Remuneration of the Supervisory Board:
The previous remuneration of the members of the Supervisory Board will cease to apply starting in the 2019 financial year. Travel expenses can be claimed as a lump sum.
Reasoning:
The Supervisory Board does not contribute to the necessary transparency - including the clarification and investigation of previous scandals - nor has the Supervisory Board instructed the Executive Board to consistently implement the Green-Country export strategy. From the point of view of the Critical Shareholders of Heckler & Koch, there must be no more arms exports to warring and human rights violating states.
Furthermore, the Supervisory Board refuses to take concrete steps towards production conversion away from the manufacturing of arms.
The present proposal by the main shareholder Andreas Heeschen to introduce a total remuneration with credit for separate remuneration for comparable tasks in subsidiaries for reasons of legal clarity and transparency would in principle be a correct step. However, this step does not go far enough. Because the disastrous financial situation of Heckler & Koch and the inadequate performance of the supervisory board must be taken into account when considering the question of remuneration. Therefore, the consequence can only be to cancel the compensation for the members of the supervisory board of Heckler & Koch AG.
The supervisory board does not appear to be fulfilling its control obligations towards the executive board in the least. This becomes clear in a long series of unsolved problems, some of which are listed below as examples:
Strategy disaster (Green-Country-Strategy for arms exports is not consistently implemented)
According to the Green-Country-Strategy, weapons from Heckler & Koch should only be exported to countries that are classified as harmless from the company's point of view. However, this does not only include NATO and EU countries, as originally announced by the H&K leadership. Since summer 2019, further countries with clear deficits in the observance of human rights can now be declared green countries, including Indonesia, Oman or Malaysia. This means that Heckler & Koch is watering down the Green-Country-Strategy.
The supervisory board has allowed that the self-imposed strategy is no longer clearly oriented towards the respect of human rights and thus weakens the previously clear stipulations of the supervisory board and the executive board - which has fatal consequences for the use of Heckler & Koch weapons in other recipient countries as well.
Sales disaster
At present, the Federal Ministry of Economics is examining the possible sale of the company, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is investigating. The media are reporting nationally and internationally on the obscure ownership situation and the threatened sale of the leading German small arms manufacturer and exporter, e.g. to dubious prospective buyers in the Caribbean.
Debt disaster
With a total debt burden of 381.7 million euros, Heckler & Koch is still threatened with bankruptcy, which cannot be ruled out even with increasing sales. Accordingly, the warning about a »risk threatening the existence of the company« according to the balance sheet audit remains relevant.
Disastrous lack of confidence in the company
A clear sign of the shattered relationship of trust between the workforce and management is that labour union IG Metall is currently having an investigation carried out into whether the management, senior executives, supervisory board, shareholders and financial backers are actually making a comparable contribution to cost reduction to that of the employees - as had been bindingly assured. Employees are currently working longer hours without corresponding wage compensation.
Judicial disaster
Instead of recognizing the verdict of the Regional Court in Stuttgart after our criminal complaint in the trial of illegal G36 rifle exports to prohibited regions of conflict in Mexico, Heckler & Koch is taking the case to the Federal Supreme Court with its appeal. The company has the right to do so, but at the same time it shows that the H&K management still does not acknowledge its own misconduct.
We, the critical shareholder Heckler & Koch, will comment on these and other disasters - for which the Supervisory Board is responsible - at the extraordinary general meeting. In view of the failed business policy, there will be no remuneration for Supervisory Board members in the 2019 financial year.
We ask the shareholders of H&K AG: Please join our counter-motion and transfer your voting rights to the critical shareholders of Heckler & Koch, in which numerous organisations are also participating with the campaign »Aktion Aufschrei - Stoppt den Waffenhandel!« (DFG-VK, Ohne Rüstung Leben, pax christi, urgewald, RIB e.V. with the GLOBAL NET - STOP THE ARMS TRADE and the umbrella organisation of the Critical Shareholders.
Contact:
ArmsInformationCentre / RüstungsInformationsBüro,
RIB e.V., Stühlingerstr. 7, 79106 Freiburg (www.rib-ev.de, jg@rib-ev.de)
And Critical Shareholders / Dachverband der Kritischen AktionärInnen
(www.kritischeaktionaere.de, dachverband@kritischeaktionaere.de),
Pellenzstr. 39, 50823 Cologne
Translation by Ruth Rohde