Central bank officials will not face prosecution for breaking banking secrecy laws in connection with the bankruptcy of privately-held bank DSB in 2009, the public prosecution department said on Friday.

DSB’s owner Dirk Scheringa had called for legal action against the central bank, saying senior officials had leaked information which led to the collapse of DSB shortly afterwards.
However, the department said there is no reason to think that central bank executives had given information to the press. The central bank only gave third parties information which was necessary for the central bank to fulfill its regulatory duties, the department said.
Scheringa claims the central bank was responsible for leaking information about the financial difficulties at DSB bank the day before it began to collapse, leading to a number of newspaper articles which hastened its demise.
For example, the Volkskrant ran a story saying DSB had been put into administration, quoting ‘sources close to the finance ministry’. The article led to a renewed run on the bank, which was finally declared bankrupt a week later.