4.3 Formal acts and informal codes

Dutch corporate governance law is based on Book 2 DCC and the Frijns Code of 2008 on best practice, which succeeded the Tabaksblat Code of 2004. The DCC is discussed at the end of sub-section 4.1.5 and in sub-section 4.6.2. The Tabaksblat and Frijns Codes are discussed at the end of sub-section 4.1.5 and in sub-sections 4.5.2 and 4.5.3. The Netherlands is a civil law country and has detailed legislation on NVs and BVs in Book 2 DCC, which contains a large number of stipulations, many of which are mandatory law and some of which are optional. In addition, corporate governance is influenced to a large extent by the Frijns Code, which is regarded as soft law in the "comply or explain" tradition, taken over from the UK system of codes of best practices. In the same way in the UK listing mies, there is an obligation in the Netherlands to report about deviations from the Frijns Code in the annual report of the company.1