28 cases of organisations breaking Iceland’s strict temporary currency restrictions have been sent to the FME financial regulator, according to Minister for Economic Affairs Gylfi Magnusson.
Magnusson made his statement in response to a parliamentary question from Independence Party MP Asbjorn Ottarsson. Ottarsson asked what practical action the government is taking to persue those who break the currency exchange laws. He also asked what options exist to prevent the currency laws being broken in the first place, Visir.is reports.
Magnusson pointed out that his answer was based only on information from the FME because his ministry’s requests for information from the Central Bank of Iceland have so far yielded silence.
Among the cases investigated by the FME, several have been passed on to the police, who carried out house searches at homes and offices at the end of January related to currency exchange violations.
Among those implicated in the case were the former handball star Markus Mani Michaelsson.
When this case hit the headlines at the end of January only 25 cases were under investigation, meaning three new ones have been added since.
For god sakes.
This incompetent government should be working lift the restrictions — not moving to prosecute unless cases of abuse are so large that they really are coming out pockets of Central Bank reserves.
“This incompetent government should be working lift the restrictions — not moving to prosecute unless cases of abuse are so large that they really are coming out pockets of Central Bank reserves.”
Maybe your previous incompetent government shouldn’t have imposed the currency restrictions or required them to be imposed by its own incompetence in the first place.
Remember that, the Independence Party are incompetent.
THIS JUST SO FUNNY TO HEAR… WHY DO THEY WORRY NOW WHEN ALL THE MONEY HAS BEEN TAKEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY??
THIS WAS THE PROCESS:
1.ICELANDIC BANKERS AND BUSINESSMEN BUY AS MANY FOREIGN CASH AS THEY CAN.
2.THEY SEND THE MONEY ABROAD TO ECONOMIC PARADISES.
3.THEY LEFT ICELAND WITHOUT MONEY TO PAY DEPOSITS BACK.
4.THE GOVERNMENT BUYS THE BANKS AND TAKES RESPONSIBILITY, MAKING IT EASIER FOR THE BANKERS TO GET RID OF ALL RESPONSIBILITIES.
CONCLUSION:
ICELANDIC POLITICIANS AND BANKERS HAVE BEEN A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF ORGANIZED MAFIA, POLITICAL FRAUD, PIRATERY AND TRAITION.
THIS HAS HAPPENED IN ICELAND AND THINGS LIKE THAT, CORRUPTED NETS LIKE THAT, DON’T GET CLEANED UP IN ONE DAY OR TWO, THEY WILL NEED YEARS. BUT IF THEY ONLY HAD THE INTENTION TO DO SO!! BUT THEY DON’T!!!
POLITICAL PACTS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, MORE LIES DELIVERED TO THE PUBLIC, MORE MANIPULATION OF CITIZENS OPINION…
THIS COUNTRY HAS LOST ALL POSIBLE CREDIBILITY… IT REALLY REALLY MAKES ME WANT TO VOMIT, SO MUCH CORRUPTION AND SO MUCH HIPOCRESY AND LIES… IT IS A REAL SHAME, THOSE CRIMINALS SHOULD BE PUT BEHIND BARS!! BUT NOW THEY COME UP WITH THE THEATRE SAYING THAT THEY ARE DOINT THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE DONE..
PURE THEATRE AND LIES IT IS!!
Fisy,
avoiding the currency restrictions sounds alot like treason. Ie. doing something that works against the nations soveriegnity or something like that.
Your saying that a little bit of treason is ok?
Take them all, every last one of them and prosecute them. Its for their own good.
It will help them feel human again.
Peter — London you can be sure that if Independence Party Social Democrat coalition was in that exchange control would have been dismantle by April 2009.
Why ?
Because they did care to clean up the mess and also not act like jelly fish over Icesave.
Social Democrats only care about joining EU at any cost and they pet projects like banning lapdancing and offensive to woman law like the crazy one about quota of woman on boards public companies.
Independnce Party would have made sure that mess was cleaned up instead of this long march into oblivion.
It matters as much that a mess is made as how it is cleaned up after. Social Democrat just dont care about bank reconstucting and lifting exchange control to pay glacier bond holders.
>Maybe your previous incompetent government shouldn’t have imposed the currency restrictions or required them to be imposed by its own incompetence in the first place.
We know why they are there.
But they should have been dismantle over a year ago.
wally :
>avoiding the currency restrictions sounds alot like treason. Ie. doing something that works against the nations soveriegnity or something like that.
It sounds a lot like a lot of new jobs for burecrats.
Once they have jobs they try and make it so that there is more reasons to employ new people under them.
Dismantle exchange controls ( a ridiculous things to have that is harming investment into the country ) and let the ISK float again if the right thing to do.
“Independnce Party would have made sure that mess was cleaned up instead of this long march into oblivion.”
Sure they would, after all they were brilliant with dealing with the mess they caused in first place. How did they deal with Icesave? Well, they left it for their successors.
Its all very well talking about what they would have done and how your party would have done better, but when they were actually in power their actions and words were a joke. They didn’t clear up ANYTHING.
Actually, what is the IP plans for the country? Get in power and cove-up the crimes of the banks, the crimes of the Party, the tax evasions and blame someone else??
fisy – that is weak. A law is in place for the protection of the people, people break the law for the enrichment of themselves and your arguement is that they are righteous because the government is stupid.
If you would read back your comments in 20 years time you would laugh at yourself.
this government sucks!!!!!!
they spent millions just by investigation itself, by the time they know who the swindlers and corrupts are, one thing for sure all the money were spent gone already.
one thing for sure all the money were spent gone already.
One of the first things that Eva Joly said was that Iceland wouldn’t recover much of the money. IIRC she expected enough to pay for the investigation but not much more.
Which makes it a little strange that she’s not a bigger fan of asset freezes.
Restrictions on the purchase of available foreign currency is an absolute necessity and will be a necessity for some time to come.
But it would be nice to have confidence that those restrictions are protected at all times for the interests of the State.
The first that needs be done is to learn who the “organisations breaking Iceland’s strict temporary currency restrictions” were and why they were breaking those “strict temporary” restrictions. If you read back to the time following the general collapse that followed the collapsing and reorganisations of thee banks, and after the implementations of the restrictions you will read of organisations whose economic life and health depended on imports, whose suppliers would not accept or credit payments in ISK. Were firms that violated the strict restrictions to pay for needed supplies, ranging from groceries to machine parts for fishing-industry machinery, needed to keep that industry going to bring Iceland foreign source revenues, committing treason, or swindling? Were the merchants who shifted their accounting to foreign nations, and to foreign currencies that still held trade values, in order to have foreign currency to pay suppliers, who returned to Iceland only so much as they had to to pay overhead expences, committing treason or swindling? Were they provided any viable alternatives then, in those times and in those circumstances? Would Iceland have benefited from all import-dependent in Iceland being reduced to bankruptcy?
Economies do not reduce handily to simple blacks and whites, villains and saviours. Those are reserved for religions and politics. Even in movies and stories undercurrents, cross-purposes and “back-stories” are demanded, mostly because they make the stories more like real life, less like politics or religion.
>Restrictions on the purchase of available foreign currency is an absolute necessity and will be a necessity for some time to come.
It is becasue the glacier bond holder need to be paid out in ISK.
Whole point is that a year of keeping krona at level of below 185 to EUR is more than long enough.
Exchange controls just do keep out foreign investors.
And it does stop it from being showed that in fact after going up for while, once glacier bond hold taken out they money which would see at 200 probably then it back to 175-180 per EURO in next year because the fundementals of Icelandic enomoy is actually good not impaired.
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/07/08/euro-exchange-rate-reached-over-180-isk/#comment-84879
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/05/25/icesave-deal-tantalisingly-close-iceland-finance-minister/#comment-78061
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/02/04/currency-controls-keeping-iceland-regulators-busy/#comment-112894
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/10/31/when-mcdonald’s-closes-what-happens-to-the-m/#comment-99679
And lots other threads from before …
Yes you are correct maybe your previous incompetent government shouldn’t have imposed the currency restrictions or required them to be imposed by its own incompetence in the first place.
The currency restrctions have one primary purpose – to stop a disorderly collapse of the currency. Such a collapse would be catastrophic for the country. Icelandic inflation would hit levels that you observe in places such as Zimbabwe, and the ISK denominated savings and investments (such as pensions) would be wiped out in a blaze of glory. And such a collapse would have no effect on the non-ISK denominated debts. In fact those debts could be used to extract all sorts of assets for the creditors when they saw that the ISK was worthless.
The restrictions indicate a country on life-support. But without them the country would be dead. At least economically dead since your terms of trade would deteriorate to the point that Iceland would need to pay in non-ISK currencies up-front, with some insurance added on for good measure. Most imported items would need to be rationed: most notably food, medicines, and fuel. (You are pretty close to that scenario anyway but with the IMF behind you the country still carries that organisation’s credibility.)
The restrictions are crude, horrible, nasty and clumsy. Not nice at all but very necessary.