Subject-matter and scope
Article 1
1. This Directive establishes requirements in relation to the exercise of certain shareholder rights attaching to voting shares in relation to general meetings of companies which have their registered office in a Member State and whose shares are admitted to trading on a regulated market situated or operating within a Member State. 2. The Member State competent to regulate matters covered in this Directive shall be the Member State in which the company has its registered office, and references to the ‘applicable law’ are references to the law of that Member State. 3. Member States may exempt from this Directive the following types of companies: (a) collective investment undertakings within the meaning of Article 1(2) of Council Directive 85/611/EEC of 20 December 1985 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) ( 7 ) ; (b) undertakings the sole object of which is the collective investment of capital provided by the public, which operate on the principle of risk spreading and which do not seek to take legal or management control over any of the issuers of their underlying investments, provided that these collective investment undertakings are authorised and subject to the supervision of competent authorities and that they have a depositary exercising functions equivalent to those under Directive 85/611/EEC; (c) cooperative societies.