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20
Financial Information concerning the Group’s Assets and Liabilities, Financial Condition andResults
Dividend Policy
234
Worldline
2016 Registration Document
Dividend Policy
20.5
distribute a dividend.
decide, upon the recommendation of the Board of Directors, to
In accordance with French law and the Company’s bylaws,
Extraordinary Shareholders Meeting, the General Assembly may
which were adopted by the Company’s general ordinary and
Company’s financial results, its financial situation, the
The Company’s dividend policy takes into account the
achievement of its objectives and its liquidity requirements.
conditions and any other factor deemed relevant by the
however. Future dividends will depend on general business
Company’s Board of Directors.
Subject to approval by the Annual General Shareholders
representing approximately 25% of its consolidated net income,
Meeting, the Group has the target to distribute annual dividends
external growth strategy. There is no guarantee of dividends,
to the extent compatible with the implementation of the Group’s
years:
The following table sets forth the total dividend amount and net dividend per share distributed by the Company over the last three
Year of distribution
2016
2015
2014
Total dividend
(in € million)
0
0
45,1
Net dividend per share
(in €)
0
0
3,88
the Board of Directors decided to propose at the next Annual General Meeting of Shareholders not to distribute any dividend on the
During its meeting held on February
20, 2017 and considering the strategic priority given in 2017 to the development of the Company,
2016 results.
Legal Proceedings
20.6
proceedings in the ordinary course of business. The Group
The Group is involved in legal, administrative and regulatory
financial loss to the Company or one of its subsidiaries, where
records a provision in cases that it considers likely to result in
the amount of such loss can reasonably be estimated.
The Group’s aggregate amount of provisions for legal
proceedings was approximately €
1.3 million as of December
31,
in order to cover litigations with personnel who left th group.
governmental, legal or arbitration proceedings likely to have, or
matters described below, the Group is not aware of any
financial condition or results of operations of the Company or
which has had over the past 12 months, a material effect on the
the Group.
As of the date of this Registration Document, other than the
TrustSeed Litigation
(Cour de cassation).
the case tried on the merits by the first instance judge. On
Court of Appeal to consider its claim admissible in order to have
court’s judgement of March
7, 2014 and thus rejected
October
27, 2015, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the Paris
(pourvoi en cassation) with the French civil Supreme Court
TrustSeed’s claims. TrustSeed decided to file a final appeal
Banque Palatine and the Company, as well as three of the
regional court of Paris by TrustSeed (“TrustSeed”) against
de France, the Economic Interest Group IT-CE, and Natixis
Company’s clients: La Caisse d’Epargne et de Prévoyance d’Ile
procedure for authenticating a bankcard user who makes an
Paiements. TrustSeed claims that it holds a patent relating to a
An action for patent infringement was brought before the
March
7, 2014, the court dismissed TrustSeed’s action for failure
any damages will be paid exclusively by the Company. On
the patent rights that it claimed to have. On September
23, 2014,
to state a claim, finding that TrustSeed had not shown that it had
TrustSeed decided to file its appeal submissions asking the
online payment by sending a code by text message. It claims
and asks that they be ordered jointly and severally to pay
that this patent was infringed by the five defendant companies
agreement between the Company and the other defendants,
damages in the amount of €
42.5
million. Pursuant to an