Concern is growing that international fund managers could be prevented from voting their shares at the annual meetings of large German companies as a result of a Cologne court ruling last year.

The potential problems have given rise to comparisons with the practice of "share-blocking". This was banned in Germany in 2005, but involved the pre-emptive immobilisation of votes for up to 15 days before corporate annual meetings, preventing investors from selling the shares to which the votes were attached.