Managing discussion and shareholders’ questions at AGMs for UK listed and AIM companies: legal duties, governance, hybrid meetings, disclosure risks, activists and disorder—practical checklist for chairs and company secretaries

Published by a LexisNexis Corporate expert

Checklists

This checklist sets out guidance on the issues and dialogue at Annual General Meetings (AGMs) of listed companies and AIM companies. It spans legal considerations, corporate governance best practice and pragmatic pointers, together with advice for the chair and company secretary on preparing for debate and unforeseen occurrences at a company’s AGM effectively.

The chair presiding over the meeting is charged with steering discussion during the meeting and must act in a neutral fashion. It falls to the chair to keep debate in check and determine when to bring discussion on a specific item to a close once they judge it has been aired fully and allowed a spectrum of opinions to be expressed.

While the UK belonged to the EU, Directive 2007/36/EC (the Shareholder Rights Directive) enshrined shareholders’ entitlement to receive answers to questions at general meetings put to them. That Directive was brought into force in the UK through the Companies (Shareholders' Rights) Regulations 2009, which amended Part 13 of the Companies Act 2006 (CA 2006) and changed how companies conduct general meetings and engage with shareholders thereafter...

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Jayne Meacham , FCG

Corporate Governance Professional/Company Secretary, Computershare Entity Solutions

Jayne MeachamA qualified Chartered Secretary and Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute, Jayne is a seasoned governance professional providing company secretarial, governance and advisory support and solutions to clients at Computershare. Jayne has extensive experience of listed companies, both in-house and client-facing. Prior to joining Computershare, Jayne was Company Secretary at FTSE-250 listed Auction Technology Group plc. Prior to that she worked in professional services for both MUFG and Vistra, as well as having numerous in-house roles over the years at St. James’s Place, Zurich, Lloyds Banking Group and SEGRO. Jayne was a winner in the Technical Expert category of the 2025 Governance HOT 100. ComputershareComputershare is a global market leader in share registration, shareholder management, corporate trust, employee equity plan management, investor engagement and global entity management and corporate governance services. We leverage our expertise and experience in financial services, technology development and...

Web page updated on 20/05/2026

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