PRESS RELEASE FROM THE ICELANDIC GOVERNMENT:
The Icelandic government welcomes the Treasury Committee report and consideres it to be a meaningful contribution to the explanation of the events in October.
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the Prime Minister of Iceland, has written to Gordon Brown the Prime Minister of the UK, asking for his reactions to findings in the Treasury Commmittee report on the actions taken by the UK government early October when the Icelandic banks collapsed. The Freezing Order, issued by the UK government on 8 October 2008 on the authority of the UK Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, freezes certain funds relating to Landsbanki, including those owned, held or controlled by the Icelandic Government and authorities. Later the UK authorities effectively took over Kaupthing Singer&Friedlander, a subsidiary of Kaupthing, put the bank into administration and transferred most of its retail deposits to the Dutch bank, ING.
The House of Commons Treasury Committee published its first report on the banking crisis on April 4th. The report: Banking Crisis: The impact of the failure of the Icelandic banks – Treasury Contents, notes that the use of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was too strong an instrument to use against Iceland and the Icelandic banks at the beginning of the banking crisis. Furthermore, the report goes on to critcise the behaviour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in relation to Iceland.
The report states: ,,The use of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 had considerable implications for the Icelandic authorities in maintaining a functioning financial system. We call on the Treasury to consider how appropriate the use of this legislation would be in any similar circumstances in the future. The use of this Act inevitably stigmatises those subject to it and a less blunt instrument would be more appropriate.”
The committee also examined the conversation between the two finance ministers, Mr. Mathiesen of Iceland and Mr. Darling of the UK, and said it had found no evidence to back Mr. Darling’s allegations that his Icelandic counterpart had said that the Icelandic government would not honour its obligations and therefore it would be necessary to apply the Security Act against Icelandic interests.
The Icelandic government has welcomed the report and considered it to be a meaningful contribution to the explanation of the events in October. According to Mr. S.J.Sigfússon, minister of finance, addressing the Icelandic Parliament, Althingi, the report would possibly make it less difficult to get the now state-run bank Landsbanki removed from the HM Treasury’s list of regimes subjected to financial sanction by the British government, which also includes Al-Qaida, the Taliban and North Korea.
The committee also notes that there migth be flaws in European banking law, referring to issues surrounding the cross-border regulation of financial institutions. The report says: ,,Our Banking Crisis inquiry, and specifically the problem of the failure of the Icelandic banks, has raised issues surrounding the cross-border regulation of financial institutions. Considerable taxpayer support has been required to provide rapid compensation to onshore UK depositors in Icelandic banks that ‘passported’ into the UK. This area of European law requires further consideration, and we will return to this topic in our future inquiry onto the banking crisis within its international context, with specific reference to the regulation of subsidiaries and branches of cross-border financial institutions.”
Brown is going down for sure , this man caused so much misery with his screw ups
You may be right, but if you are it won’t be because of Iceland. Domestically, the action against the Icelandic banks was neutral or positive for him.
Any UK politician is going to get very positive reaction from the UK public and the right wing media when standing up to foreigners who steal from UK consumers.
Brown is doomed, but more for getting the UK into this mess in the first place.
No Surprise for Brown..with his little smear scandal going on right now !
Bromley86, you are absolutely right. All this was done for one purpose – to improve domestic rating. And it was easy and – most important – safe.
>All this was done for one purpose
Simply untrue. Whether it was a reason or not has not been established. But the pervasive irregularities within the Icelandic banking and political systems have been. As has the intention of the Icelandic government to, taking the best possible interpretation, wait and see if they were going to honour the guarantee.
Thats a real, hard reason for freezing the Landsbanki assets.
There is no way that Brown will criticise Darling’s behaviour from last year, however much evidence and informed opinion piles up that criticises Darling. One day, Icelandic ministers will learn that the best way to obtain responses from UK authorities is to make specific information requests under the Freedom of Information act.
Brumley with that interpretation I think more and more that you might be knowing this Derek Draper as you do not moderate opinion even in face of facts that do not support you assertion.
This case one run and run but notice that when facts discussed reasonable people — and those wanting to be seen as being reasonalble like UK parliemntp member in this review — do not have good things to say about Darling-Brown.
Note this not Judge who digged deeply into facts of case but MPs and with bias towards Labour MPs who are part of Darling-Brown. Interesting that they use mostly source of Ingimundur report of February that jsut been brushed under carpet here in Iceland media.
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/02/06/the-banking-crisis-in-iceland-in-2008/
Judge will be looking at facts in case with regards to this Kuapthing Singer Friendlander case in UK high courts:
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/03/16/kaupthing-uk-legal-case-makes-high-court-progress/
PS Do you think now that Jóhanna and Steingrímur will now bother to read Ingimundur’s report.
Now that the UK Parliament MPs use it as source. Cants say they didnt know about it now.
But I dont think they want to open that can worms as it will show that
i) they wrong to kick out the compitent people like Ingimundur Friðriksson and Eiríkur Gudnason in their attack on “the crook” Davið
ii) it shows EU operating as normal. That way is not the way Icelandic people expect. And dont want attention given to this aspect — that EU will act even worse once were to be inside as Iceland will have such little say under qualified majority voting as to have no say at all.
Never read anything by Draper – in fact I’d not heard of him until you linked to him a couple of weeks ago. It may surprise you to hear that I’ve not voted Labour in any of the 4 general elections that I’ve voted in.
Anyway, I don’t think you understood what I said. Alexander said:
“All this was done for one purpose”
I replied that this was not the case. It may be that Landsbanki assets were frozen for domestic political reasons (i.e. Scotish election, UK polls, etc.). I’ve not read anything other than Icelandic or SNP consipracy theories that this is the case, but it could be.
It is known, from a generously pro-Mathiesen interpretation of the transcript, that there was at least a chance that the Icelandic government would not honour the guarantee.
As I said, that is a fact (as opposed to the conjecture, right or wrong, about political motivations) and also happens to agree with the reason given by the UK government for its actions.
As you know, I personally interpret Mathiesen’s statements more strictly that I have in the post above.
They didn’t criticize the decision itself though. They just said that there should be another law on the books.
BTW, I don’t mind you calling me Brumley, but is that a pun in Icelandic? :)
it wuz confussing. i don’t understan what i read