BizJournals Portfolio
Home >   Business Views, Opinions and Blogs >   Business Blogs >   Market Movers >  

Useful Foreign Word Of The Day Herenakkoord

Market Movers

by Megan Barnett
Main
It's a Wonder Anything Gets Done in Washington   Monday Links are Fiscally Expansionary

Recent Blog Posts

Links

Apr 06 2009 12:34pm EDT

Useful Foreign Word of the Day: Herenakkoord

One of the handier concepts to have come out of a foreign dictionary during this crisis is that of Anstaltslast, the German idea that if the state owns a company, then there’s an implicit government guarantee on that company’s liabilities. Essentially, it means that once a bank is nationalized, you can lend to it as much as you like, safe in the knowledge that you’ll get all your money back in full and on time.

Now Justin Fox has found another handy foreign concept: the Dutch herenakkoord, or “gentleman’s agreement”. That’s what the Dutch government has come to with the Dutch banking industry: the upshot is that the top 12 financial institutions won’t be giving themselves whopping great bonuses any time soon.

As Justin says, the very fact that it’s all a bit hand-wavy and vague is a strength: it’s definitely principles-based rather than rules-based, as it were. Trying to legislate executive pay never works. Signing a herenakkoord seems like a much better idea.

Reprinted from Reuters

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.


Connect With Portfolio.com
Like Portfolio on Facebook

Come on, like us—you know you want to.

Follow Portfolio on Twitter

Follow us and if you're an innovative entrepreneur, we'll return the favor.

The Mix

Today's top stories, conversation starters, and the back nine business bites.

spotlight on

Slideshows

500 Startups Hits New York

Dave McClure's brainchild makes its way to New York and introduces East Coast money folks to some intriguing new companies. View Slideshow