Germany: the corporate governance code - comply or else?

The German Corporate Governance Commission has published the results of a survey of supervisory board and management board chairs of companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange with regard to the Commission's Corporate Governance Code. An overview of the survey, conducted by the Berlin Center of Corporate Governance, is available here (pdf). The survey found, amongst other things, that around 40% of respondents thought that there was no choice but to comply with all the Code's rules because of pressure from proxy advisors, the media and shareholders.