People charged with supervising companies and institutions often have too many other jobs, says Morris Tabaksblat, who drew up the Netherlands’ first corporate governance regulations.

‘If you look through the list, then I think, how can you do all that in a normal working week, or even in an extra working week,’ Tabaksblat said on tv programme EénVandaag.
The Tabaksblat code requires that bourse-listed companies list ‘relevant’ additional jobs done by supervisory board members.
Former Labour culture minister Rick van der Ploeg, who was also on the show, called for a limit to the number of public sector supervisory jobs which can be held by one person.
Conflict of interest
And professor Hans van den Heuvel told the show that queen’s commissioners – who are the effective chairman of the provincial councils – can face conflicts of interest if they hold supervisory functions in the private sector.
Last year, the queen’s commissioner in Zuid-Holland, Jan Franssen, was at the centre of a political row after it emerged a company he also worked for won a €7m contract from the provincial council he chairs. Franssen had 23 other jobs as well as his queen’s commissionership.
And pension giant ABP has appointed Harry Borghouts, the queen’s commissioner in Noord Holland, as chairman – also considered a full-time job.
The head of the Dutch tax service Jenny Thunnissen was forced to resign from her second job as a hospital supervisory board member last year to avoid a conflict of interest over tax dodging.