ABSTRACT

British Home Stores collapsed led 11,000 employees to lose their jobs and faced substantial cuts to their pension with a £571 million pension deficit. In light of the BHS scandal, the UK Government has proposed a set of corporate governance reforms to strengthen the employee voice. Although the government’s approach towards strengthening the employees’ protection is well intentioned, we argue that without providing a derivative claim right for employees, these measures will likely have little impact in practice. Hence we suggest that to safeguard the employees’ interest in the company and to enhance the overall protection of the company, in addition to the current proposed reforms, the standing for bringing derivative claims should be broadened to the employee’s representative.

摘要

British Home Stores倒闭导致11,000名员工失业，并面临大幅削减退休金和5.71亿英镑的退休金赤字。鉴于BHS丑闻，英国政府提出了一系列公司治理改革措施，以增强员工的声音。尽管政府采取了旨在加强对雇员的保护的方法，但我们认为，如果不为雇员提供衍生权，这些措施在实践中将几乎没有影响。因此，我们建议，为了维护员工对公司的利益并增强对公司的整体保护，除了当前提出的改革措施之外，应将衍生权主张的地位扩大到员工代表。