Trouble with the “economists”
Grimm elected to the supervisory board of Siemens Energy
February 26, 2024, 8:59 p.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
Despite the strong concerns of other “economic experts”: Nuremberg Professor Grimm is elected to the supervisory board of Siemens Energy AG. She doesn’t see any potential conflicts of interest, and neither does the group’s general meeting.
The “economic method” and Nuremberg professor Veronika Grimm has been elected to the supervisory board of Siemens Energy AG. The group’s general meeting appointed her to the control committee with 76.4 percent of the votes cast. There had previously been a dispute in the Advisory Council for the Assessment of Economic Development, which advises the federal government.
The four other members of the Advisory Council had asked Grimm to leave the Advisory Council if he accepted the supervisory board mandate. They justified this with possible conflicts of interest. They emphasized that it was by no means a matter of getting rid of “an unpopular critic of the red-green government policy.”
Grimm had explained that she had checked whether the supervisory board mandate was compatible with her role on the Advisory Council. In addition, there was a compliance check at Siemens Energy with the result that the case was harmless.
“Economic wise” has previously served on supervisory boards
So-called “business leaders” had previously been active as supervisory boards in German stock corporations without there being any public criticism. Grimm is skeptical about easing the debt brake and has also set his own accents in energy policy. She has been a member of the Advisory Council since April 2020. Grimm had said that the independence of the Advisory Council was “incompatible with the desire to force me out of office.”
According to a statement from Siemens Energy, it was significant at the general meeting that a single shareholder voted against the appointment. Without this vote, approval would have been over 99 percent. What is piquant is that, according to data from the Bloomberg news agency, only two shareholders have a sufficiently large stake in Siemens Energy to make such a difference with their decision, taking the representation quota into account: the former parent company Siemens and its pension fund.