Corporate Governance
Accentis attaches great importance to the correct and transparent provision of information to its stakeholders: shareholders, partners, tenants, suppliers and others. The corporate governance principles, the principles of sound management, are thus also the basis for daily operational decisions.
Corporate governance is defined in the Belgian Corporate Governance Code as a series of rules and conducts on whose basis companies are governed and controlled. The Code is based on the comply-or-explain principle: Belgian exchange-listed companies must follow the Code. They may however deviate from its stipulations and guidelines (but not from its principles) on condition that they justify each such divergence.
The Board of Directors has taken as a given the objective of observing the Code’s principles and stipulations as conscientiously as possible, but is of the opinion that certain deviations from the Code are justified. Thus a majority of the directors are not independent. As a consequence of recent changes to the Board of Directors, the Board currently has only one independent Director. It is however the intention to have at least three independent Directors serving on the Board of Directors in the future.
The Board of Directors is of the opinion that the company, with the exception of the divergence mentioned above, complies with all the Code’s principles and stipulations.
On 12 March 2009 the Commission on Corporate Governance published the 2009 edition of the Belgian Corporate Governance Code (‘Code 2009’). For the time being it is only available in English. The Dutch version will be released at the end of May 2009. The Code 2009 replaces the previous version from 2004. The Code 2009 will also be made available on this website with explanations for any possible divergences.