 I think you are all familiar with the big corporate events like general shareholder meetings of big companies, really exclusive and big events. So this year we had a coronavirus pandemic so that such big events were not possible at all. The German legislator reacted very fast and introduced the act to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and he made it possible for stock companies to hold their general shareholder meetings only online, like without any physical presence of shareholders. You have to know that under the German stock corporation law an exclusively virtual shareholder meeting is actually not allowed. So what we have is a hybrid meeting with some shareholders participating online and some shareholders participating physically. The German stock corporation act says there must be a place of the meeting which is understood as a physical place. Moreover the scholars say the shareholder has an irrevocable right to be physically present at the meeting and therefore cannot be forced to participate online. That's why we don't have any experience with a real virtual shareholder meeting. So my research question is what can we learn from our new experience in this pandemic year? Is a really virtual shareholder meeting something to be retained in the future? And if the answer is yes, which features of the new law of the I call it the COVID Act can be a blueprint for a future legislation? I used two approaches. The first was to look at the legal provisions of the COVID Act to compare them with existing laws and with what we already know about the subject in order to tell if these provisions should be retained in the future. Are they a good law or a bad law? I give you an example. The COVID Act repeals the right of shareholder to be physically present at the general meeting. Is it good or bad? To answer this question you can look at the reasons for the right of physical presence. Some scholars say we need it because many shareholders have no access to modern communication technologies or cannot use them properly. But is this argument still true? We see that the handling of online meetings, online corporate events is getting better every day. And as for the shareholders, they have to use modern technology if they want to participate at general meetings in 2020. So one can hardly argue it is impossible or too difficult for the shareholder to learn how to use these technologies. That's why the abolishment of the right of physical presence is probably a good idea. The second option is to look at the legal facts. As I committed my research this year, companies were sending their shareholders invitations to general meetings. So one could see if the company have decided to hold its general meeting virtual only or not and which features of the COVID Act the company use. My key finding is that the COVID Act is a helpful crisis act. And the general idea of an exclusively virtual general meeting is good. But on the other hand, many of the provisions of the COVID Act are purely crisis provisions. For example, the COVID Act gives the management the power to hold an exclusively virtual general meeting without being authorized by the statutes of the company. It is clear that many companies were not prepared for the sudden outbreak of the pandemic and therefore have no provisions on virtual general meeting in the statutes. But in the future, the statutes must inform the public of how the meetings, the general meetings of the company are held because this information can help someone to decide whether to buy company shares or not. The other point is that the COVID Act is rather weak in dealing with shareholder issues with shareholder rights. The big problem is the right to ask questions. Normally a shareholder can ask questions during the general meeting, thus reacting flexibly to the events of the meeting. According to the COVID Act, the management can stipulate that the questions have to be submitted to the company no later than two days prior to the meeting. And many companies have already made use of this option, thus limiting the rights of their shareholders. So the main idea of an exclusively virtual shareholder meeting is good, but the details like shareholder issues cannot be a model for future legislation because in a future legislation we have to ensure that the shareholders participating in the virtual general meeting have the same rights as the shareholders participating in a physical meeting. In the legal literature, the calls for exclusively virtual general meetings have never ceased. They are a cost-reducing factor, like the company don't have to rent a location, the company have no calls for catering, and so on. And this cost-reducing can make German corporate law more attractive for investors. I don't think we should ignore this fact. The experience gathered under the COVID Act will probably play a big role in our future discussion on how to launch an exclusively virtual general meeting in our stock corporation law. Like other areas of law, corporate law will be significantly influenced by digitalization in the future. In the future it will be possible to form companies exclusively online. It is already stipulated by European laws or that legal framework have to be created for it. In order to form a company online, we will need online notarization. Another big issue is the use of artificial intelligence in the internal decision-making of the company. A lot of legal questions arise in this area too. So virtual shareholder meetings are only a part of a big puzzle. It is in the nature of things that law mostly lack behind technical development. But we have to ensure that this delay doesn't become too long so that our legal system remains internationally competitive.