According to a recently adopted law transposing Directive (EU) 2381/2022 on reinforcing gender balance among directors of listed companies and related measures, listed companies having their registered office in Romania must ensure a balanced gender representation among the board of directors by June 30, 2026, starting with future appointments. More specifically, companies for the purpose must meet one of the following objectives:
- members of the underrepresented sex to hold at least 40% of non-executive directorships;
- members of the under-represented sex to hold at least 33% of all directorships, both executive and non-executive;
- must adjust its process for selecting candidates for appointment or election as directors, who must be selected on the basis of a comparative analysis of the qualifications of each candidate, by applying clear, neutral and unambiguous criteria in a non-discriminatory manner throughout the selection process, including in the preparation of vacancy notices, in the pre-selection phase, in the short-listing phase and in the establishment of pools of candidates.
NB! According to the law, these criteria must be established by a clear internal procedure developed at company level prior to the start of the selection process (we believe that adjusting already existing internal policies to include this set of rules will be sufficient to achieve the purpose of the law).
