General Meeting (Hauptversammlung, HV)

The General Meeting (Hauptversammlung, HV) is the central forum of a stock corporation (Aktiengesellschaft, AG) where shareholders exercise their membership rights and vote on significant resolutions. Typical topics include amendments to the articles of association, capital measures such as capital increases or share buybacks, the election of the supervisory board and auditors, profit appropriation, dividend distribution, and the discharge of the management board and supervisory board. The meeting is convened by the management board in compliance with statutory deadlines; the agenda, location, and time are published in the Federal Gazette. Each shareholder has a voting right weighted by the number of shares held. The online General Meeting is gaining importance, enabling digital voting and question rights. Although the General Meeting itself is not a registerable term, register-relevant resolutions such as amendments to the articles of association or capital increases must be notarized and subsequently entered in the commercial register; only then do they become legally effective. A properly conducted General Meeting is a central element of good corporate governance, enhancing transparency and fostering capital market trust. Investors, founders, and corporate governance officers should therefore be well-acquainted with the procedures and obligations of the General Meeting to optimally exercise their rights under German stock corporation law.

General Meeting resolutions of stock corporations appear as register-relevant events (e.g., amendments to the articles of association, capital increases) in the chronological extracts that the handelsregister.ai API provides in a structured manner. This allows for programmatic evaluation of General Meeting decisions and their implementation (date, notary, new capital amount, etc.) and linking with other company information.