Did Nout Wellink operate within the margins of the law? René van Leeuwen thinks a court case would be just the thing to get to the bottom of the Dutch National Bank’s (lack of) supervisory qualities. ‘There is a limit to administrative immunity and even the president of the DNB must abide by the law’.

Last week the Volkskrant reported that the Dutch National Bank had withheld two documents from the parliamentary inquiry committee headed by Jan de Wit. The documents in question were titled Bank in brokken (Bank in pieces) written by the bank’s in house historian Corry van Renselaar who sadly died before she could finish them.

‘For the first time in the history of parliamentary inquiries a committee has not been given the full set of documents requested’, the paper wrote. So what punishment fits this particular crime? ‘A reprimand’ from the minister. Not much of a punishment, then, although withholding information does constitute an offence.

Justice

The De Wit report contained some damning conclusions. The DNB was too quick to admit Icelandic bank Icesave to the Dutch market and should have intervened in the hostile takeover of ABN AMRO. But what good are damning conclusions when there are no fitting sanctions? Is this justice?

Until now, a group of duped citizens united in an organisation called ‘Icesaving’ has been the only one to take the DNB to court. The preliminary verdict is expected in the next few days. Unfortunately, press coverage of the action has not been extensive: Icesaving consists of very wealthy Icesave savers who think DNB hasn’t taken its supervisory duties very seriously (i.e: not at all). The DNB should never have allowed to let Icesave onto the Dutch market, they claim.

Being fat cats, these people are probably not interesting enough for the media. Rich people are not usually regarded with much sympathy here. If the judges were to rule that the supervision of the DNB should be looked into and find for the claimants, legal and perhaps political doors will be opened to other citizens to get tough with the DNB. How is that for a precedent?

Smiling

In an earlier column I wrote about Wellink’s appearance on the Knevel en Van den Brink talkshow. He was casually confronted with some footage from an earlier chat he had with his hosts in May 2011. In it, a broadly smiling Wellink explained, that of course the Netherlands would get their money (€4.7bn) back from Greece, with interest. What fun they had, all christian brethren together.

In the most recent programme, he had to take it all back but he was smiling all the same. The money wouldn’t be coming back. A shame, but there it was. Almost five billion euros down the drain and there’s Wellink saying it can’t be helped. He then went on to quote Keynes: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’. That is a wise attitude in principle.

Brink 

The key words here are ‘in principle’. What had, in fact, changed? Greece was  (and is) teetering on the brink and was to all intents and purposes under the financial supervision of the Troika. There were plenty of critics even then who said we’d never see the money again.

The fact is that the DNB withheld documents that may have been damaging. And it is also a fact that Wellink, after the Icesave and ABN AMRO debacles, was caught napping again when it came to the €4.7 Greek loan, or should I say gift. Does this not constitute bad governance?

Is Wellink just a bad banker or is he sticking his head in the sand? Or both? Whose best interests did he have at heart, ours or those of Draghi and his pals?

Judge

A parliamentary inquiry is not enough. Let a judge decide on the DNB’s supervision. There are, after all, limits to administrative immunity and even the president of the DNB must abide by the law. The question is: did he?

Even if the judge threw out the case, which is more than likely, a gesture would have been made. Citizens would have warned administrators (and bankers in particular) that there are limits and that even the untouchable upper class must play by the rules: this is it, no further.

René van Leeuwen knows he is being naïve but he wouldn’t mind having a go at taking the DNB to court. Unfortunately he knows nothing of things legal and his finances are in dire straights as well.

 René van Leeuwen is studying for a Masters Degree at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. This article was published earlier in the Volkskrant