WILLEMSTAD - The banking statute of the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (CBCS) contains points of concern that can seriously hinder good governance and threaten the independence of the CBCS. This is according to Justus van der Lubbe, director of insurer Inter-Assure in a press release.
For example, the Central Bank statute is not linked to the Corporate Governance Code and Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code (BW). According to Van der Lubbe, the provisions that guarantee good management and supervision within a company should also be applied to the CBCS.
According to the CEO of the insurance company, it is virtually impossible to hold directors and supervisory directors of the CBCS liable for gross negligence or serious neglect of duties. “With regular directors and supervisory directors, the limit for liability is much lower, namely with the question of whether a 'serious blame' can be made on them,” says Van der Lubbe.
The extremely high threshold may mean that directors and supervisory directors of the CBCS cannot be held liable for gross negligence or serious neglect of duties, while these can cause major damage to the CBCS, the financial sector and the supervised institutions, says the insurer.
Political interference
Furthermore, Van der Lubbe states that there are no consequences associated with political interference, the appointment of the president, the management board and the Supervisory Board is sensitive to political influence and the law contains too few guarantees to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The appointment procedure is also unnecessarily complex, says Van der Lubbe.
The CEO is arguing for a scheme that makes it possible to gradually replace supervisory directors, and which prevents a group of supervisory directors from being replaced in one go every four years.