The Finnish Prime Minister is at odds with the Chancellor of Justice over an alleged conflict of interest surrounding election campaign funding. Read the full story

Bjarni Benediktsson, leader of Iceland’s Independence Party has protested claims he was involved in a property speculation racket in Macau. Read the full story

Baldur Gudlaugsson, the under-fire permanent secretary from Iceland’s Ministry for Education, Science and Culture has announced he will resign from his post, according to a statement from the Ministry. Read the full story

Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen has been asked by opposition parties to “draw his own conclusions” from the scandal surrounding election campaign funding, and then to resign from his post. Vanhanen has come increasingly under fire in recent weeks over claims, counter claims and confusion over the source of his campaign funding, according to NewsRoom Finland. Read the full story

A high-ranking prison guard, hardcore convicts, a biker gang and prostitutes were just some of the elements involved in Denmark’s latest prison scandal. Copenhagen’s Vestre Faengel prison was the site of the drama, where an experienced guard has been accused of accepting bribes from biker inmates in return for letting them have unfettered access to mobile phones in their cells. Read the full story

Iceland’s Independence Party has repaid a ISK 300,000 donation made by Neydarlinan, the country’s emergency services hotline (accessed by dialling 112).

The Independence Party admitted it should not have accepted the 2007 donation as it runs counter to a 2006 law on which organisations can and cannot contribute to political parties. Read the full story

The latest Transparency International list still ranks the Nordic countries as the least corrupt on earth, but significant slips for Norway and Iceland show others are catching up.

Iceland is in 7th place on the latest Transparency International corruption list. Iceland used to top the list of least corrupt nations ahead of Finland just two years ago, but has now fallen. Iceland’s current score is 8.9, but used to be 9.2 before, MBL.is reports.

Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand received the organisation’s highest scores this time round, with a high score being awarded for low institutional corruption.

Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand were awarded 9.3 points, Singapore 9.2, Finland and Switzerland 8.9 and Australia and Read the full story

The Norwegian Police Financial Division has fined German telecoms engineering company, Siemens two million Kroner for alleged corruption.

The case involves a golf trip to Spain in 2004 for three military officers which was paid for by the company.

The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime said the expenses paid for the trip for three military officials totalled about 20,000 kroner.

However their lawyer has hit back at the charges in which two of the company’s employees are to be fined 75,000 kroner, while the police have dropped their enquiries into the three military members.

Siemens’ lawyer Ellen Holager Andernaes told AFP; “the company has not decided yet whether it will accept a trial or not but my advice to them will be… to have the case (taken) to court.”

“That is my advice because I consider that it is not corruption,” she added.

It’s not the first time Siemens have been embroiled in corruption charges and slush funds allegations after a similar case surfaced in 2006.
Siemens in Germany has been hit hard by charges of corruption since 2006. German investigators determined that there was widespread practice among Siemens’ divisions to make payments to obtain foreign contracts.

They subsequently acknowledged initiating an internal probe into more than 1.3 billion euros in ‘missing funds’.