Principles of corporate governance, organisational design and risk management

Paper for internal auditors in the financial sector

Companies in the Dutch financial sector have to comply with a wide range of requirements, which include regulations in the areas of corporate governance, organisational design and risk management: domestic laws and regulations, laws and regulations for the regulation of certain industries, and corporate governance codes.

It would be impossible to formulate requirements that apply to all financial companies, as the activities, size, complexity, risk profile and public interest of the various companies are too diverse. Nonetheless, there are many general principles that have been found to apply to many financial companies. The principles of corporate governance, organisational design and risk management included in this paper represent an attempt to formulate such a set of general principles.

In this way, we want to provide internal auditors with clear principles for audits of governance, risk management and control processes. These principles should be translated into a tailored reference framework based on the specific situation.

The principles are not based on a specific model or particular assumption or paradigms, but on the ‘largest common denominator’ of the laws and regulations, other requirements, theories and concepts applying to the relevant companies.

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