Dutch Corporate Governance Code

The Corporate Governance Committee (Tabaksblat Committee) published the Dutch Corporate Governance Code on the 9th of December 2003. This document includes the Code itself, as well as a preamble and explanation of and notes to certain terms used in the code.

On the 30th of December 2004, the legislator designated the Dutch Corporate Governance Code as a code of conduct to which listed companies should refer in their annual report, in which they should indicate to what extent they have complied with the principles and best practice provisions ("the apply or explain principle").

You can download the Dutch Corporate Governance Code here.

The 40 recommendations of the first Dutch Corporate Governance Committee (Peters Committee), as contained in the 'Corporate Governance in the Netherlands; the Forty Recommendations' report (1997), formed the point of departure for the activities of the Tabaksblat Committee.