Gold

Question discussed at the 2007 general meeting

Under the terms of the Civil Code, the National Bank of Belgium is the legal owner of the gold reserves accounted for on the asset side of its balance sheet, even if, pursuant to Article 9bis of the Organic Law, it is not free to attribute these reserves to other purposes than the general interest missions that it is tasked with in its capacity as the country’s central bank.

This position taken by the National Bank is not called into question by the court ruling of 9 March 2007. This judgment has no influence on the ownership of gold reserves, nor on their being recorded as assets in the Bank’s balance sheet. It nevertheless clearly confirms that the Bank’s shareholders cannot claim to have any right to the capital gains realised on gold reserves and that the latter are excluded from the profits distributable to shareholders.

Court ruling of 9 March 2007: French - Dutch