Spanish SGAE returns as CISAC member

The Spanish collective management society SGAE has been reinstated as a member of CISAC after an extensive reform process.

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 / 12/03/2021 / Willy Martinsen

CISAC, the global umbrella organization for collective management societies, announced in May 2019 that it was excluding the Spanish management society SGAE as a member. The reason was that CISAC had found that the Spanish management society had practices in a number of areas that deviated from the requirements that CISAC sets for its members. This included discriminatory treatment of rightholders and irregularities in the distribution of remuneration. In parallel with the exclusion, CISAC emphasized that they would assist and cooperate closely with SGAE to ensure that changes were implemented that would allow the organization to be reinstated as a CISAC member.

Read the news on CISAC's website here

Comprehensive reforms
The CISAC Board of Directors decided at its meeting on 10 March to readmit the Spanish SGAE as a member of the organisation after a thorough review of all the changes that have been introduced to the company’s practices and operations over the past three years. The reforms that have led to SGAE’s re-acceptance as a CISAC member include:

• cessation of discriminatory practices in the election of board members and supervisory boards
• Election of new board members, as well as restoration of representation from all licensee groups in the company's governing bodies
• Establishment of new rules of good conduct (code of conduct) to resolve conflicts of interest
• Changes in weighting of different categories of music, and separation of music and audiovisual pools
• A cap of 20 percent deduction in payments for music broadcast at night in line with Spanish law
• Development of a technology project to address the distortions in remuneration calculations caused by inaudible music in reports

Happy to hear of your recovery.
TONO's CEO Cato Strøm is delighted with the news.

– We have closely followed the process that SGAE has been through over the past three years, and are pleased to hear that the clean-up job that the Spaniards have done with good assistance from CISAC can now be considered completed. I know that SGAE has taken the work of restoring its lost trust very seriously. With the clean bill of health from CISAC, we have good reason to expect orderly and good business practices from SGAE from now on, he says.