Shareholders Hold the ING Board liable for Money laundering and wage Affairs. A majority of ING shareholders did not relieve the bank’s management on Tuesday of the potential liability for the money laundering affair and the remuneration debate around top executive Ralph Hamers, the bank announced in a press release.

It concerns 62 percent of the shareholders.

This majority did not grant so-called discharge to the current and former members of the Executive Board,

 and the Supervisory Board during the annual shareholders’ meeting.

The shareholders’ meeting can stop the discharge if the board has not,

 entirely or inadequately, fulfilled its duties.

The board is then responsible.

Stopping discharging is unusual.

In 2018, ING settled for 672 million pounds with the Public Prosecution Service,

 because the bank took insufficient actions to combat money laundering.

In the same year, a big discussion about the reward of Hamers started.

The Supervisory Board of ING wanted to raise it to more than 2.6 million pounds,

 in the form of shares that Hamers would receive in addition to his fixed salary of 1.5 million pounds.

Due to severe criticism, the bank finally chose to withdraw the salary proposal.