It aims to ensure that banks are able to meet capital requirements after paying out dividends.

More specifically, the Verbund undertakes to make available to Austria a new financial instrument, a profit participation right (Genussrecht). On the basis of that instrument, which has a small nominal value, Austria will receive profit-dependent distributions which will be senior to all other hybrid or dividend distributions. By [2020-2025], distributions on a profit participation right will amount to EUR 300 million, minus any payments received from the winding down of ÖVAG.

Must Article 4(3) of Directive 2011/96/EU be interpreted as precluding national legislation under which a tax is levied on the distribution of dividends if that legislation has the effect that, in the case where a company distributes a received dividend in a year subsequent to the year in which it received that dividend itself, it is taxed on a portion of the dividend which exceeds the threshold laid down in the aforementioned Article 4(3) of the Directive, whereas that is not the case if that company redistributes a dividend in the year in which it receives it?

4. Before the management body has formally taken a decision or proposed a decision to the relevant body on the distribution of dividends, the amount of foreseeable dividends to be deducted by institutions from the interim or year-end profits shall equal the amount of interim or year-end profits multiplied by the dividend payout ratio.

To illustrate this, SACE provided data showing that SACE was profitable in 2004-2010 with ROE exceeding 6 % for all those years and annual dividend pay-out ratio varying from 40 % to 95 % of the profits summing up to the total amount of dividends of EUR 2,1 billion in addition to the restitution of part of the capital of EUR 3,5 billion to the State as a shareholder.

The full amount of unpaid dividends is considered to confer a benefit to the recipient SOE steel producers within the meaning of Article 6(a) of the basic Regulation as this is inconsistent with the usual investment practice of private investors that require dividend distributions normally attached to their shares.