The Monitoring Committee Corporate Governance Code has published its third report. The Committee expresses concerns about legislative initiatives (e.g. bonus clawback) to incorporate sections of the Corporate Governance Code into statutory law. The Committee criticises the legislature for not waiting to see how the Code has been complied with.

The Committee's conclusions over 2011 include:

  • compliance with the principles and best practices is good, and parts of the Code are applied by almost all listed companies
  • existing arrangements concerning appointment and redundancy payment which deviate from the Code can only be invoked by directors who were appointed before 2004
  • a simple referral by a company to its own rules without further elaboration does not constitute an explanation and can be regarded as non-compliance
  • the supervisory board's report should provide an insight into its activities, attendance percentages, and evaluation process

In December 2011 the Monitoring Committee Banking Code issued its first integral report on the implementation of the Banking Code, which entered into force on 1 January 2010. The report states that larger banks have made more progress in implementing the Banking Code than other banks. The supervisory board is more intensively involved in risk management than was previously the case.

The Monitoring Committee had published a positive interim report on compliance with remuneration principles in September 2011.

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