Switzerland: the cabinet pushes for gender quote law in company boards

The cabinet has endorsed plans to impose a gender quota for boards and managements of listed Swiss companies as part of a wide-ranging legal amendment to be discussed by parliament. 
The bill includes a minimum 30% quota for women on company boards and at least 20% for members of company managements. Over the issue Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said “The cabinet agreed that rules are necessary.” 

The discussions is coming up after last week, during UN committee in Geneva; the panel of experts said it welcomed Swiss progress since the last report in 2009. Overall, Switzerland needed to develop a ‘comprehensive national gender strategy’, it said.

The panel highlighted concerns about ‘structural barriers and gender bias’ that led to fewer female parliamentarians in the House of Representatives (32% of members) and Senate (15%) and in extra-parliamentary commissions. And also fewer women on executive boards and in other top management and decision-making positions.
According to a recent survey, the proportion of women on the boards of directors of the 100 largest Swiss companies rose from only 13% in 2014 to 16% in 2016. Women occupy only 6% of executive-board positions, a figure that has not changed since 2013. The number of female university professors and judges is also low, the panel added.

However, the bill stops short of imposing sanctions for companies which fail to implement the quota within five years for executive boards or ten years for management. Instead, it proposes a “comply or explain” regulation as a best practice standard.
Sommaruga said the draft was taking into account opposition from the business community by proposing long transition periods. The government published the broad outline of the legal amendment last December.