Board of Managing Directors. The Board of Managing Directors is responsible for managing the company. Its member are jointly accountable for the management of the company. The duties, responsibilities and procedures of our Board of Managing Directors and the committees installed by the Board are specified in its Terms of Reference, which are available on our Internet website.
The following paragraphs show information on the current members of the Board of Managing Directors. The information includes their ages as of December 31, 2003, the year in which they were appointed and the year in which their term expires, their current positions or area of responsibility, and their principal business activities outside our company.
To assist us in avoiding conflicts of interest, the members of our Board of Managing Directors have generally undertaken not to assume chairmanships of supervisory boards of companies outside our consolidated group.