From an early stage, our corporate governance has sought to bring about a sustained increase in enterprise value and to promote trust in the company’s management and control mechanisms among investors, customers and employees. An important element of responsible corporate governance is a trusting working relationship between the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board, while they in turn must communicate openly with shareholders.

Unqualified Declaration of Conformity issued once again
On December 20, 2005, the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board issued an unqualified Declaration of Conformity for the fourth consecutive year. This signals that we are complying with all current recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code in the version dated June 2, 2005. We are also implementing the suggestions of the Code, with one exception: the Annual General Meeting (AGM) is not broadcast over the Internet in its entirety. Instead, the broadcast continues until the start of the general debate. From the company’s perspective, any decision to broadcast the entire AGM over the Internet is contingent upon it becoming legally feasible to cast votes electronically before the votes are counted in the AGM.

Our listed subsidiary, Deutsche Postbank AG, issued its own unqualified Declaration of Conformity on March 18, 2005. Postbank also complies with the suggestions of the Code to a large extent.