info.LandsbankiAction.org.gg 17-Dec: Part-payment of 11-12.5p in the £1 in January 2010 announced. Deloitte Press Release
Iceland News
This page contains brief summaries of and links to media reports on the topic of Iceland News.
Iceland Won't Settle Icesave Feud `at Any Price,' Arnason Warns
Iceland’s new Economy Minister Arni Pall Arnason wants to make clear to the U.K. and Netherlands his government won’t negotiate a depositor claims settlement at any price and may resort to the courts in pursuit of better terms. . .
Moody’s in July said continued failure to resolve the Icesave dispute may prompt the International Monetary Fund and other lenders to withhold future disbursements. Iceland has been relying on a $4.6 billion IMF-led loan since 2008 to stay afloat. The fund said on July 23 it was aiming to conduct its third review of Iceland’s loan in early September. Arnason said a date for that review has yet to be set. 08-Sep-10.
Landsbanki's Bond Holders Will Get Next to Nothing, Finance Minister Says
Creditors of failed Icelandic lender Landsbanki Islands hf will get next to nothing back from their investments after assets are sold to cover the bank’s priority claims, Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson said.
The comments end hopes creditors, including BNP Paribas SA and Nordea Bank AB, may have had of recouping their share of $27.4 billion in debt owed them since Landsbanki’s collapse in October 2008.
“The general claimants in Landsbanki are not likely to get much, if anything,” Sigfusson said in an interview in Reykjavik yesterday. “In the other banks, the situation is better and they will get some return,” he said, referring to bond holders in Kaupthing Bank hf and Glitnir Bank hf. . .
The government is considering guaranteeing the portion of $5.2 billion in Landsbanki’s depositor claims that won’t be covered by asset liquidations, estimated at about 10 percent, Sigfusson said. That includes Icesave deposits and other claims against collateral. 24-Aug-10.
EFTA extends Iceland Icesave deadline
The Icelandic authorities have been given an extended deadline to respond to a letter from the EFTA concerning the Icesave dispute.
ESA, the EFTA Surveillance Authority, sent a letter in May detailing that it feels the Icelandic government must pay the Netherlands and the United Kingdom back the minimum contractual amount for the money the two countries spent in compensating customers of the failed Icesave internet bank, run by Iceland’s Landsbanki.
RUV reports that the Icelandic government was given two months to respond to the letter or face possible expulsion from the European Free Trade Association. The original deadline was next Monday, but has now been extended to the beginning of September – possibly because of ongoing negotiations between the three countries involved.
Iceland has always expressed its intention to pay, but the EFTA wants to know when. [Ends] 24-July-10.
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/07/24/efta-extends-iceland-icesave-deadline/
Iceland, British, Dutch officials try to revive Icesave talks
Representatives of Iceland, Britain and the Netherlands met in Reykjavik this week to prepare further talks on a new repayment deal to cover the collapse of the Icesave bank, the Icelandic government said Friday. . .
"The purpose of the meetings was primarily to exchange information and to prepare further talks later this year," it said, pointing out that "this is the first time the parties meet since the talks were adjourned on March 5." 02-Jul-10.
Landsbanki law suit could see Icesave payout cut to 30 percent
A group of international banks has filed a legal challenge against the Landsbanki dissolution committee claiming that they should be treated as priority claimants. If they win, only 30-35 percent of the bank’s assets will go to pay Icesave.
According to Old Landsbanki, Iceland’s emergency banking laws allow the bank to classify the Dutch and British depositors’ insurance funds as priority claimants; but other creditors to the bankrupt bank, including big banks and bondholders, have decided to challenge the decision in court under Iceland’s bankruptcy laws. 29-May-10.
EFTA: Iceland must pay Icesave
The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) yesterday sent a letter outlining its decision that Iceland is legally bound to insure the minimum deposit guarantee to British and Dutch Icesave account holders. The guarantee is part of Iceland’s EEA (European Economic Area) membership agreement.
The minimum depositors’ guarantee is EUR 20,000 per saver in the failed Icesave internet savings accounts which were run as a branch of Landsbanki before it collapsed in autumn 2008. The EFTA report states that the UK and the Netherlands have reimbursed their own savers and that Iceland’s severe recession does not diminish the country’s obligation to pay the two governments back.
The Icelandic government had insisted in a letter to the EFTA that the existence of a depositors’ guarantee fund in the country was enough to fulfil the requirements of the EU directive on cross border banking and also that the rules do not fully apply in the case of the collapse of an entire national banking system (as happened in Iceland). The EFTA disagrees with this reading of European law. 27-May-10.
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/05/27/efta-iceland-must-pay-icesave/
Does anyone remember Icesave?
It’s as if Icesave has completely evaporated from the agenda in the three countries involved – Iceland, the UK and the Netherlands – but the accounts haven’t yet be settled. Iceland still owes money to the UK and the Netherlands as the two countries compensated the deposit holders according the EU insurance guarantee regulation.
The IMF has recently passed fund’s programme on Iceland to the next level. The prerequisite had been to solve the Icesave dispute – since it is a major economic variable – but Iceland found a way to satisfy the fund’s demand though nothing has been resolved. As so often, Iceland seems hell-bent on wriggling out of the Icesave fetters rather than solving the matter. It remains to be seen how the matter evolves now that there is a new government in place in the UK. Sigrúm Davidsdóttir's Icelog Blog - 19-May-19.
Failed Icelandic bank seeks 197 million euros from former staff
REYKJAVIK — Failed Icelandic bank Kaupthing said Monday it would seek to recover 32 billion Icelandic kronur (197 million euros, 244 million dollars) from former executives who had taken loans to buy shares in the bank.
Around 80 former employees, many of them former top executives, have been informed they would be held personally liable for huge loans they had taken to buy shares in Kaupthing before it collapsed in October 2008, administrators of the bank's liquidation said in a statement. . .
Iceland's third failed bank Landsbanki has also said it is planning a lawsuit to try to get back as much as 1.5 billion euros from former executives and shareholders. 17-May-10.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jRXbUVXZXzphjcFfhmcjSq_E262A
Landsbanki to seek two Billion Dollars from Former Owners and Management
The winding-up committee of Landsbanki is now in the final stages of preparing a number of cases against former management and the owners according to Morgunbladid. The amount that the board asks for as reimbursement amounts to 0.75 billon USD (90 billion ISK). The board also asks for eight billion ISK insurance payment, because of criminal activity on behalf of the former management of the bank.
The winding-up committee last summer hired a team of specialists from Deloitte in Britain to investigate the bank before the October 2008 crash. Herdís Hallmarsdóttir, who is on the winding-up committee says that the investigation is making good progress, but is not yet finished. . . .
Two of the three former owners of Landsbanki, Björgólfur Gudmundsson and Magnús Thorsteinsson are now legally bankrupt. The third owner, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, is still liquid. The CEOs of the bank were Sigurjón Árnason and Halldór J. Kristjánsson. 15-May-10.
http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16567&ew_0_a_id=362355
Investigators preparing Landsbanki white collar crime report
Pall Benediktsson, spokesman for the Landsbanki resolution committee, says that a special investigations team at the auditing company Deloitte has been preparing a report into alleged misconduct at Landsbanki before the crash in autumn 2008.
“There they have professional bookkeeping investigators doing much the same as Kroll for Glitnir. They will hand in their report on their investigation at the next bank creditors’ meeting on 27th May,” Benediktsson told Visir.is . . .
Benediktsson is unhappy at an article published this week on Visir.is saying that the Landsbanki committee constantly drags its feet on communicating openly compared to its Kaupthing and Glitnir counterparts. He said it is simply not true that the committee has been withholding information. 15-May-10.
