Switzerland: Changes to the General Meeting service for the securities held via a direct link with SIX SIS AG - Update

Note: This announcement, originally published on 24 October 2025, has been updated to add information about client testing. Changes have been highlighted.

Clearstream¹ informs clients that effective as of

2 February 2026

and following the activation of the new direct link to Switzerland announced in Announcement A25064, the changes will apply to the General Meeting service for the securities held with the Swiss CSD, SIX SIS AG.

The new process will impact the temporary mandatory registration and/or voting instructions for General Meeting events.

Note: General Meeting process for securities remaining to be held with UBS – the Investment Funds - is not affected by this change and will continue to follow the current process.

Scope 

Swiss domestic securities

• Bearer shares: Voting services will be provided; no registration will be required.
• Registered shares: Both registration and voting services will be provided and handled at the beneficial owner level or at nominee level if such is permitted by the company as per its article of association.
• Bonds: Bondholder meetings will be handled via a Corporate Action event  CONS VOLU using the MT messages in ISO 15022 or MX equivalent for Corporate Action. It may include incentive premiums where applicable. If PROX and/or SPLI options are announced, it would be reported via CONY option as part of the CONS VOLU event.

Foreign securities held with SIX SIS AG

Clearstream generally supports voting for cross-border securities (that is, those not held in their home market) on a best-efforts basis, and only if the Investor CSD supports it. Clients should be aware that service availability for those securities may vary, and some restrictions may apply.

Meeting event notification

A Meeting event on the Swiss equities will be announced to clients in the General Meeting Notification via seev.001, MT564+ or Xact Web Portal, as per clients’ reporting subscription.

The General Meeting Notification on the Swiss registered shares will include in addition the Registration Securities Deadline and Registration Securities Market Deadline.

Note: Registration for the General meetings is mandatory for those shares on the Swiss market.

Voting instruction processing

Swiss bearer shares

The standard Clearstream requirements for Vote/Proxy/Attendance Instructions will apply.

Registration will not be applicable, therefore the securities registration field must not to be filled in.

If the Beneficial Owner (BO) disclosure is required, at least the following BO details must be provided in the structured fields of the General Meeting instruction:

For natural persons:

• Name
• Surname
• Town
• Country
• Identification

For legal persons:

• Company Name
• Town
• Country
• Identification

Swiss registered shares

Clients will be required to submit two separate instructions:

• One for temporary securities registration; and
• One for Vote/Proxy/Attendance instruction. The latter should include the Shareholder ID (Skontro number) provided as the response to the temporary registration.

This applies to all Swiss domestic registered shares, where Securities Registration Deadline and Registration Securities Market Deadline is populated in the Meeting Notification.

The submission of the two-purpose instruction (for example, VoteWithRegistration or ProxyWithRegistration) will not be allowed and will be rejected.

Step 1: Temporary Registration Instruction

Securities registration request instruction (seev.004) must include Securities Registration flag “TRUE”. Clients instructing via Xact Web Portal must populate the respective flag in the GUI. 

Instruction (per single instruction ID) must be at single beneficial owner (BO) level, one owner per instruction.

Registration Instructions with multiple BOs will not be supported.

In case of joint ownership, the registration must be requested for only one of the joint owners.

Registration on the Nominee Level is supported only if this is permitted by the company.

The following mandatory beneficial owner details will be required to be provided in the Rights Holder block in the respective standardised fields:

For legal persons:

• Name
• Address - Post Code
• Address - Town Name
• Address - Country
• Address - Street Name and Building Number (Building Number is optional, but to be added if available)
• Identification (not necessarily LEI)

For natural persons:

• First Name and Last Name
• Address - Post Code
• Address - Town Name
• Address - Country
• Address - Street Name and Building Number (Building Number is optional, but to be added if available)
• Identification 

The registration request instruction must not include participation method, vote, proxy or physical attendance details.

Step 2: Temporary Registration Confirmation

Clearstream will validate and record the instruction. Upon successful validation/positioning, the position will be blocked and reported in the Instruction Status using the seev.006/Xact Web Portal with the status PACK and with a reference of the blocking instruction. Once the confirmation of registration is received from SIX SIS AG, clients will receive the Instruction Status via the seev.006 with the status REGM and including the assigned Shareholder ID, which will be also visible in the Xact Web Portal.

Step 3: Voting Instruction

Voting, Proxy or Attendance instructions must only be sent after the temporary registration has been processed and the Shareholder ID (Skontro number) has been provided.  Instructions sent before the temporary registration has been confirmed and/or without Shareholder ID (Skontro number) will be rejected.

Note: Clients who are permanently registered do not require the temporary registration, but should include their Shareholder ID (Skontro number) obtained from the permanent registration in their voting instruction providing the respective BO details used for the registration.

Clients’ Voting instruction (seev.004) must include the Shareholder ID (Skontro number) received following the submission of the temporary registration request instruction (or available from clients’ permanent registration) and the BO details previously provided in the registration request instruction (or in the permanent registration request). Clients instructing via Xact Web Portal must populate the required fields in the GUI. 

There must be a one-to-one relationship between registration and voting instructions at beneficial owner level, including the instructed quantity.

Clients should not override the registered position.

Step 4: Deregistration

The deregistration and the unblocking of the positions will be processed automatically by Clearstream on the meeting date plus one business day upon receipt of the deregistration confirmation from the market. 

Cancellation of the registration request instruction would trigger the deregistration of the position. Cancellation of the registration request if the registration has already been forwarded to the share registrar, can lead to the cancellation rejection.

Note: The registered position is blocked and not available for settlement. To allow settlement, the clients will need to deregister their position by cancelling the registration request instruction.  This is possible once the registration process is completed at the registrar, the Shareholder ID (Skontro number) received by the client and the Registration Securities Market Deadline has passed.

Deregistration after the Registration Securities Market Deadline does not affect the rights holder’s eligibility to participate in the meeting event.

If the registration process has not yet started, the client can cancel the registration request instruction that would be processed automatically.

General Authorisation for Registration Form (GEE)

A share register may ask to get a copy of a General Authorisation for Registration Form (GEE) for every pending registration. For example, real estate companies may request to provide a GEE form for each registration due to the Swiss Federal Act on the Acquisition of Immovable Property in Switzerland by Foreign Non-Residents.

This form must be filled in at beneficial owner level and must be provided along with the intermediaries’ chain immediately upon request. If the form cannot be provided in a timely manner, it could have an impact on the registration instruction processing and by consequence to the vote instruction or participation in the meeting event in general. 

The template of the GEE Form can be requested via email by contacting: CADATABASE.CS(AT)CLEARSTREAM.COM with a subject: PCP GEE FORM Switzerland.

Note: Different GEE Forms for legal entities and for individuals to be considered.

Clearstream highly recommends ensuring corresponding GEE Forms are at hand before sending it the registration instructions. If requested, those forms would need to be sent to Clearstream via email and without any delay. 

Impact on clients

Clients are requested to review and adapt their instruction setup to comply with the updated instruction flow and to consider the following specifics:

• Respect the timing requirements, and more specifically Clearstream Securities Registration and Vote Deadlines.
• Ensure that registration and voting/proxy/attendance instructions are submitted separately and contain the required rights holder data.
• Ensure one-to-one matching between registration and voting/proxy/attendance instructions per beneficial owner and quantity.
• Ensure General Authorisation for Registration Form (GEE) is available.
• Blocking of positions in the registered shares: Swiss registered shares have currently no record date.
  At the client’s account level, Clearstream will apply blocking as of receipt of the valid instruction until the deregistration is completed.
• Blocking of positions in the bearer shares: Clearstream blocks securities until the Securities Blocking Period End Date provided in the Meeting Notification. If no date is provided in this field, the generic blocking behaviour as per General Meeting Detailed Functional specifications applies.

Client testing

Clients have the possibility to participate in the November testing window as announced in Testing Windows for Clearstream General Meeting Service (Announcement C25031).

Further information

For further information, please refer to the General Meeting Detailed Functional Specifications published on the website.

In case of questions, please contact Clearstream Client Services or your Relationship Manager.

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1. Clearstream Banking refers collectively to Clearstream Banking S.A., registered office at 42, avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg, and registered with the Luxembourg Trade and Companies Register under number B-9248, and Clearstream Europe AG (for Clearstream Europe AG clients using 6-series accounts), registered office at 61, Mergenthalerallee, 65760 Eschborn, Germany and registered in Register B of the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main, Germany under number HRB 7500. 
Clearstream Banking S.A. is registered as an Australian CS (Overseas) Facility, under subsection 824B(2) of the Corporations Act 2001, with registration number ARBN 675 244 783.