AFM report on Zalm too limited: reviewer

Monday 15 March 2010

The AFM financial service regulator's report into Gerrit Zalm's role in the downfall of DSB Bank last year did not take his other expertise into account, professor Michiel Scheltema, told MPs on Monday.

Scheltema had been asked by former finance minister Wouter Bos to assess the AFM and central bank's reports into Zalm's role.

The two regulators reached sharply different conclusions. The central bank said he had done nothing wrong, while the AFM said Zalm had not carried out his role with sufficient care.

Finance minister Jan Kees de Jager sided with the central bank and Zalm, who was finance minister himself for 12 years, was allowed to keep his new job as CEO at ABN Amro.

Scheltema told MPs on Monday the AFM report did not take Zalm's role as finance minister or his initial performance at ABN Amro into account. His leadership qualities over the past five years had also been ignored, he said.

'It is notable that one only looked at his time with DSB,' the professor told MPs. And a number of negative conclusions about Zalm's role were not properly supported with evidence, he said.

© DutchNews.nl

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