Governance Control Mechanisms in Portuguese Agricultural Credit Cooperatives

Decisions in the central ACC generally obey the principle of democratic control (one-
member-one-vote), except for some specific decisions (election of the central ACC board of
directors, budget approval and profits allocation) in which the number of votes for ACC can
differ according to the participation in the central ACC capital equity, to the average deposits and
the solvency ratio of the ACC.

Single ACCs have three governance bodies (Figure 1): general assembly, management

board⁴ and audit board. The general assembly includes all the members of the coop and usually
meets twice a year, one for the appreciation of the annual activities plan and concomitant budget,
and the other for the appreciation of the annual operating activities plan and budget, and the
annual activities report which includes the balance sheet and income statements.

General Assembly

Principle of Democratic Control

Competences ■ Election of the governance bodies;

■ Sanction of the ACC annual operating activities plan, budget and
report of activities proposed by the board of management;

■ Approval of ACC merger or liquidation;

■ Determination of the ACC governance bodies payments.

organizations and their product markets are limited.

⁴ The common designation (in the literature) is board of directors, but considering the small scale of ACCs
operations and their organizational structure, management board seems to be more appropriated to describe their
role.

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