English translation of an article published by Dutch newspaper ncr.nl on 26 March 2019. The extensive parts of the article relating to Ben van Burden and Shell are in bold print.
Are top managers being bugged?
White collar, dirty hands? You don’t have to be a suspect of cocaine smuggling in the Netherlands to be overheard by the judiciary. In recent years, the telephones of at least two board chairmen have been tapped. Maybe even more. They never put such information in an annual report.
The first was Theo Bruijninckx, chairman of the board of the then already financially weakened construction company Ballast Nedam. In the spring of 2012, he was intercepted on various telephones (home, mobile, at the office). He was not a suspect, but justice was looking for information about an older bribery case. Ballast Nedam was taken over by the Turkish conglomerate Rönesans after a series of losses in 2015.
Alys Key:
BY 
Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden has the same message for activists seeking to bind Royal Dutch Shell Plc to deep emissions cuts, and investors concerned about the merits of shifting away from oil and gas: Trust me. He 
Activist investors set to challenge energy giant to shift away from fossil fuels
AGM WEBCAST Tuesday May 23, 2017 at the Circustheater, Circusstraat 4, The Hague, The Netherlands at 10.00 am (Dutch time)
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