A/HRC/32/45 8. The Working Group would like to thank the States that responded to its questionnaire on the role of States as economic actors.2 Their responses, when relevant to State-owned enterprises, have been used to inform the present report. Not many States responded to the questionnaire, thus the geographic scope of information available for the report is limited. However, efforts have been made to expand the geographic scope of the report (see section III) and the Working Group welcomes information from the States that have relevant practices not referred to in the present report. The Working Group intends to follow up on these issues, including at the fifth annual Forum on Business and Human Rights to be held in Geneva in November 2016. It looks forward to cooperating further on these issues with States, State-owned enterprises and other interested partners. B. Defining State-owned enterprises 9. Countries differ greatly with respect to the range of entities that they consider as State-owned enterprises. For the purposes of the present report, the Working Group uses the definition contained in the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises,3 which reads as follows: Any corporate entity recognized by national law as an enterprise, and in which the State exercises ownership, should be considered as a State-owned enterprise. This includes joint stock companies, limited liability companies and partnerships limited by shares. Moreover statutory corporations, with their legal personality established through specific legislation, should be considered as State-owned enterprises if their purpose and activities, or parts of their activities, are of a largely economic nature (p. 15). 10. The OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises clarifies the relationship between ownership and control and places emphasis on effective control: the Guidelines apply to enterprises that are under the control of the State, either by the State being the ultimate beneficiary owner of the majority of voting shares or otherwise exercising an equivalent degree of control. Examples of an equivalent degree of control would include, for instance, cases where legal stipulations or corporate articles of association ensure continued State control over an enterprise or its board of directors in which it holds a minority stake (ibid.). 11. Thus, there might be cases where a State, as a minority shareholder, does exercise effective control and, as a result, the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of StateOwned Enterprises and principle 4 of the Guiding Principles would apply. C. State-owned enterprises: state of play 12. State-owned enterprises are important players in domestic markets and increasingly so in the global economy. Despite waves of privatization in the 1980s and 1990s, many States still manage large State-owned enterprises portfolios. Over the past decade, the 2 3 4 They are: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Georgia, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, Norway, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America. All responses are available as received at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Pages/ImplementationGP.aspx. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises, 2015 Edition (Paris, 2015).