Back The remuneration of the administrators under the law of capital companies Setting the remuneration of administrators under the Capital Companies Act: two types of remuneration After the reform of the remuneration regime for administrators operated by Law 31/2014 of December 3, the current LSC maintains the provision of gratuity of the position of administrator unless there is a statutory provision to the contrary. In the event that administrators are to be paid, and as a general rule, the law establishes that the statutes will determine the remuneration system, which will include the remuneration items to be received by administrators in their capacity as such, and attributes to the General Meeting the competence to approve the maximum annual amount to be received by them. Thus, article 217 of the LSC establishes that "the maximum amount of the annual remuneration of all the administrators in their capacity as such must be approved by the General Meeting and will remain in force until its modification is approved". Unless the Board determines otherwise, the distribution of the remuneration among the administrators will be established by agreement of these, and in the case of the Board of Directors, by decision of the same. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the law establishes a particularity for the CEOs and directors to whom executive functions are attributed, since in such cases the law requires that the remuneration for such functions be established in a contract approved by the Board itself, in which will specify each and every one of the concepts for which the director will be paid for the exercise of his executive functions (art. 249 of the LSC), so that said director may not receive any remuneration for the performance of functions executives whose amounts or concepts are not provided for in that contract, which, however, must be in accordance with the remuneration policy approved, where appropriate, by the General Meeting. In this case, and as an exception to the general rule, the law does not require that the remuneration for the exercise of said executive functions be provided for in the bylaws, but autonomy is attributed to the Board of Directors to establish the remuneration of the directors for such functions. Consequently, with the entry into force of this reform of the LSC, it seems that the law recognizes two types of remuneration: 1) The remuneration of the directors "in their capacity as such" (functions of surveillance, control, deliberation, among others) in which it will be necessary for the bylaws to include the remuneration items to be received by the administrators and for the General Meeting to approve the amount maximum annual remuneration of all administrators; and 2) La remuneración de los consejeros por el desempeño de funciones ejecutivas que exige la firma de un contrato entre el consejero y la sociedad, aprobado por el Consejo, pero donde la ley no exige que se establezca en los estatutos los conceptos retributivos que el consejero delegado o consejero con funciones ejecutivas puedan percibir. En este caso será el Consejo de Administración el órgano competente para fijar y establecer la retribución de los consejeros ejecutivos, incluida su cuantía, que podría superar incluso el máximo fijado para los administradores “en su condición de tales” , salvo que exista una política de retribuciones aprobada por la Junta que estableciera directrices en este sentido, y salvo el caso del artículo 220 de LSC para las sociedades limitadas (el establecimiento o modificación de cualquier clase de relaciones de prestación de servicios entre la sociedad o alguno de sus administradores requerirá acuerdo de la junta). La información contenida en la presente nota no debe ser en sí misma considerada como un asesoramiento específico en la materia comentada, sino únicamente una primera aproximación al tema tratado, siendo por tanto aconsejable que los receptores de la presente obtengan asesoramiento profesional sobre su caso concreto antes de adoptar medidas o acciones específicas.