Intermediärernas roll på aktiemarknaden : Aktieägarens nya bästa vän?

The matter of shareholder rights has since long been a topic of conversation within the European Union. After setting a goal to achieve engaged and long-term shareholders, the EU introduced the Shareholder Rights Directive in 2007. After only a few years, the EU concluded that shareholders had been supporting poor corporate governance and performance during the financial crisis in 2008. A revised version of the directive was therefore issued in 2017. This new directive includes rules which regulate the role of so called intermediaries. The intermediaries are now expected to help the company identify its shareholders, transmit information between the shareholder and the company, as well as facilitate the exercise of shareholder rights. The purpose of these new rules is to encourage long-term shareholder engagement and enhance transparency between companies and investors. The rules are expected to make the shareholders pay closer attention to the corporate governance and for the intermediaries to encourage such governance. The new set of intermediary rules will soon be implemented into Swedish law. This thesis aims to examine the efficiency of the proposed rules and to which extent they will contribute to fulfilling the goal of increased long-term shareholder engagement. The aim is furthermore to determine the structure in which these rules are to exist while also highlighting practical effects, especially in light of the Swedish stock market and its ownership structure. As a result of said examination, it is primarily found that there are several potential risks that might prevent a fulfillment of the legislative purpose. These risks derive from an unclear implementation of the rules, cost-related issues and a lack of supervision. It is also concluded that the Swedish ownership structure and the corporate governance model clearly limits the need of intermediary involvement. The goal is not expected to be met by the Swedish intermediary rules, which clearly highlights the need for corporate governance initiatives to be customized to the market in which they are expected to function