The legislation that regulates the management of companies in Lithuania is the Stock Company Law. According to this law, the financial participation of workers is defined by companies’ statutes and the decisions of shareholders, meaning there are no regulations for the FP of workers in Lithuania.

There are companies in Lithuania that offer FP to their employees, but only to top management, and it is known that shareholders grant stock to managers or give them the opportunity to buy shares at a very low price. The reasons for such actions are to ensure that good managers remain loyal to the company and to encourage them to be motivated in their work. This option is offered mostly in leading joint stock companies and only to employees in top management who are of strategic importance to their firms. Granting stock to non-management workers of a company, or giving them other opportunities to participate financially in the company’s success, is not perceived as useful by stockholders, and they usually find other ways to encourage the motivation of workers.

There was an absolutely different situation during Lithuania’s privatisation period, when the FP of workers was realized as the socialist economy was reorganised into a market economy and state capital was sold to the private sector. According to their record of service and work experience, workers got vouchers and could decide on their own how to use them – to buy flats that were being privatised, to buy shares in companies, or to save them. The vouchers could also be traded from person to person. All companies were fully privatised and, over the years, smaller shareholders sold their stock to larger stockholders, meaning the employees’ stakes in firms decreased.

There has been no mention of an intention to introduce legal regulations of the FP of workers in Lithuania. All FP of workers depends only on each company’s own statutes and the decisions of shareholders.