6.1.1 The Board of Directors
Excerpt from Article 12 of the bylaws:
The Company is managed by a Board of Directors composed of a minimum of three members and a maximum of eighteen, subject to the dispensations provided for by the legal and regulatory provisions in force, including in the event of a merger.
No individual exceeding the age of 75 may be appointed as director. If a director in office exceeds the age limit of 75, the latter, at the close of the first General Meeting following his or her birthday, will be deemed to have automatically resigned.
The number of directors who are over 70 years of age may not represent more than a third of the directors in office.
If the above-mentioned proportion is exceeded as a result of a director turning over 70, the eldest director is deemed to have automatically resigned from office at that date.
A legal entity may be appointed as director. In such a case, the above-mentioned provisions regarding the age limit also apply to the permanent representatives of any legal entity that has been appointed director.
Directors, including employee-representative directors, are appointed under the conditions provided for in the legal and regulatory provisions in force by the Ordinary General Meeting for a four-year term. They may be re-elected.
However, the Ordinary General Meeting can exceptionally appoint one or several directors for a term of less than four years. This is only for the regular renewal of the Board of Directors by rotation, so that such renewal applies to a different portion of its members each time.
In the event of a vacancy of one or several seats of directors appointed by the Ordinary General Meeting, the Board of Directors can carry out, pursuant to the conditions provided for in the legal and regulatory provisions in force, provisional appointments that will be subject to the ratification of the Ordinary General Meeting pursuant to the conditions provided for in the legal and regulatory provisions in force.
Failing ratification, the decisions made and the actions completed beforehand remain valid.
The director appointed pursuant to such conditions to replace another remains in office for the duration of his or her predecessor’s remaining term of office.
As long as the Company’s shares are admitted to trading on a regulated market, each director, with the exception of the employee-representative director(s), must hold at least 500 of the Company’s registered shares.
As the Company falls within the scope of application of Article L.225-27-1 of the French Commercial Code, the Board of Directors includes one or two employee-representative directors.
Article I.1 of the Board of Directors’ Internal Regulations stipulates that at least half of the directors on the Board must be independent within the meaning of the criteria set forth in the AFEP-MEDEF Code.
The framework for the preparation and organization of Board meetings results from French company law and the related regulations in force, from the Company’s bylaws and from the Board of Directors’ Internal Regulations, which also describe the procedures of the Board Committees (see the relevant section of the Universal Registration Document).
