3:12  Pursuant to Articles 62 and 63 §1 of the Brokerage Supervision Act, members of the statutory governing body, senior managers and heads of the independent control functions must devote sufficient time to the exercise of their functions within the firm. This general principle of availability is laid out in Article 63 §§1 to 9 of the Brokerage Supervision Act and in the NBB Regulation of 9 November 2021 on the exercise of external functions by the managers and heads of independent control functions of regulated undertakings.

3:13 In brief, firms should adopt and comply with internal rules on external functions that pursue three objectives, namely to (i) ensure availability, (ii) prevent conflicts of interest, and (iii) ensure the disclosure of external functions. Firms should carry out a concrete assessment of the impact of the performance of external functions on managers and the heads of independent control functions. In this context, prior approval must be granted by the statutory governing body or senior management on the basis of a file the minimum content of which is laid down in the NBB Regulation of 9 November 2021. Firms are obliged to disclose external functions (except those exercised by the heads of independent control functions) in their annual report or on their website and to notify the NBB of the same using the fit & proper forms.^[1]

3:14 For more information on the exercise of external functions, please see the NBB Regulation of 9 November 2021 and Communication NBB_2022_19 of 12 July 2022.

^{[1] More specifically, Article 63 §8 of the Brokerage Supervision Act provides that the NBB must be notified without delay of external functions performed by directors and senior managers, with the exception of senior managers at N-1 level (excluding the heads of independent control functions). In practice, this limitation on the scope of application concerns only the notification of new external functions performed during the exercise of another function (using the “New information - New external function” form).  This limitation is  also without prejudice to the obligation for firms to update annually the eManex platform, which is intended to provide an overview of all external functions performed by directors, senior managers and the heads of independent control functions.}