Neelie Kroes broke EU rules with secret 2nd job: Report

Neelie Kroes broke European Union conduct rules by being the director of a company in the Bahamas during her term as European Commissioner and never reporting that position to the Commission, Financieele Dagblad reports based on documents in the hands of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to the newspaper, Kroes was named as director of Mint Holdings between July 4th, 2000 and October 1st, 2009. Kroes admitted to the newspaper that she was formally in breach of the Commissioners Code of Conduct and that her lawyer informed the President of the European Commission about it. Kroes also said that she takes full responsibility for the violation and accepts the consequences. She added, though, that she thought she was de-registered as director of the Bahamas based company in 2002. An administrative error led to it only happening in 2009. This revelation of Kroes' involvement in Mint Holdings forms part of the so-called Bahama Leaks - 1.3 million documents about companies in the Bahamas were leaked to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which were shared with the ICIJ.