Challenges and Procedures for Implementing the "Say on Pay" in France

"To trace events back to their origins is to understand them better as they are," wrote Aristotle, a man of great insight ("Politics," I, 2). Now that it is time to take stock-after years of implementation abroad and a single year of implementation in France-is "Say on Pay" the social tool for regulating executive compensation that we had hoped for? Let us answer this question in the negative right from the start. Contrary to what critics of high executive pay had expected, "Say on Pay" is a "managerial" tool, not a "social" one. Instead of leading to a decrease in compensation, "Say on Pay" has had an unexpected effect: executive compensation is increasing, but more importantly, it is evolving.