The Office of the Special Prosecutor in Iceland took the Board of Directors of SPRON, Iceland´s largest Savings Bank before the bank Collapse in 2008, to District Court on Monday, for breach of trust.
This is the first time the OSP has charged a Board of Directors in connection with alleged criminal activities leading up to the fall of the Icelandic financial system in October of 2008.
Questions were immediately raised about whether the members of the Board of Directors at SPRON could and should step aside in light of the seriousness of the charges, but who are those the OSP in taking to court?
Margret Gudmundsdottir is the CEO of Icepharma, one of the leading companies in Iceland in the healthcare market and represents brands like Baxter, Bayer, Lilly, Merck Serano, Mylan, Pfizer, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, CSL Behring, Biomet, Coloplast, Hill-Rom, Hospira, Smith & Nephew and Nike, to name a few. She is also the Chairman of the Board of N1, Iceland´s biggest fuel retail and service company. Ms. Gudmundsdottir worked for N1’s main competitor, Shell, for 10 years and was a director at Q8 in Denmark, and is on the board of the Federation of Icelandic Trade, before she joined Icepharma.
Rannveig Rist is the CEO of Rio Tinto Alcan in Iceland. She has been on the Board of Directors of HB Grandi, Confederation of Icelandic Employers, Iceland Drilling and Skipti. She was also at Promens and Director of the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Rist is a Lecturer at the University of Iceland.
Johann Asgeir Baldurs is the Chairman of the Board at Frumherji, the leading company in Iceland in inspecting, testing and legal metrology in Iceland. He was the CEO of VIS, Iceland’s largest insurance company and a member of the Board of Directors at IGI Group, Lysing financing company and was the Chairman of the Board of Viking Redningstjenese A/S in Norway.
Ari Bergmann Einarsson, investor, was a Branch Manager for SPRON Savings Bank and now works as and independent investor.
The Board of Directors of both N1 and HB Grandi have held meetings where it has been discussed if Ms. Gudmundsdottir and Ms. Rist should continue to sit on the Board of Directors and concluded that until further notice, the both will do so.