Employee benefits
The Company offers several post-employment, death, disability and healthcare benefit schemes. All employees have access to these schemes. The death, disability and healthcare benefits granted to employees of the Company are covered by external insurance companies, where premiums are paid annually and charged to the income statement as they were incurred.
The post-employment pension plans granted to employees of the Company are based on defined contributions for which the insurance company guarantees a defined interest until retirement (type ‘branche 21/tak21’).
As a consequence of the law of December 1, 2015, minimum returns are guaranteed by the employer as follows:
| • | for the contributions paid as from January 1, 2016, a new variable minimum return based on OLO rates, with a minimum of 1.75% and a maximum of 3.75%. In view of the low rates of the OLO in the last years, the return has been initially set to 1.75%; |
| • | for the contributions paid until end December 2015, the previously applicable legal returns (3.25% and 3.75% respectively on the employer and employee contributions) continue to apply until retirement date of the participants. |
In view of the minimum returns guarantees, those plans qualify as Defined Benefit plans.
A provision has to be recognized for the sum of the positive differences, per plan participant, between the minimum guaranteed reserves and the accumulated reserves.