S.L. 452.98 Art. 7Decisions of the special negotiating body.

(1) Each member of the special negotiating body shall have one vote.

(2) Subject to subregulation (3) and to regulation 8, the special negotiating body shall take decisions by an absolute majority of its members, provided that such a majority also represents an absolute majority of the employees.

(3) Any decision which would result in a reduction of participation rights must be taken by two thirds of the members of the special negotiating body, representing at least two thirds of the employees and including the votes of members representing employees in at least two Member States if -

(i) in the case of an SCE to be established by a merger, at least 25% of the employees employed in the Member States by the participating cooperatives which are due to merge have participation rights; or

(ii) in the case of an SCE to be established by any other way, at least 50% of the total number of employees employed in the Member States by the participating legal entities have participation rights.

(4) For the purposes of subregulation (3), reduction of participation rights means that the body representative of the employees has a smaller proportion of members of the supervisory or administrative organs of the SCE than the highest proportion already existing within any of the participating legal entities which gave participation rights to its employees.

(5) The special negotiating body shall publish the details of any decision taken under this regulation or under regulation 8 in such a manner as to bring the decision to the attention, so far as reasonably practicable, of the employees whom they represent and such publication shall take place as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event no later than fourteen days, after the decision has been taken.

(6) For the purposes of negotiations, the special negotiating body may be assisted by experts of its choice.

(7) The participating legal entity or entities shall pay for any reasonable expenses of the functioning of the special negotiating body and any reasonable expenses relating to the negotiations that are necessary to enable the special negotiating body to carry out its functions in an appropriate manner; and this shall include the expenses of one expert where the special negotiating body is assisted by experts of its own choice.