Some of the roots in the Euro crisis were due to specific features of construction of the European Monetary Union, but the crisis was also triggered by the second-wave shocks from the global financial crisis. The first-round effect of the 2007–2008 panic was a vast deterioration of balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions.
Directors face potentially severe criminal penalties and civil liability where a disclosure statement is held to be false or misleading. Complementing the disclosure requirements, banks incorporated in New Zealand are required to have a minimum of two independent directors (who must also be independent of any parent company) and a non-executive chairman.