LANDSBANKI Guernsey depositors are the worst-affected by the Icelandic financial crash, and Iceland may now never re-compensate [sic] the UK, it has been claimed.

Hundreds of thousands of Iceland residents have joined an insurrection proposing that the UK and Netherlands, which lent the country the money to bail out foreign savers when Landsbanki collapsed in October 2008, should not be recompensed.

Over the past year they have become increasingly unhappy about bearing this cost saying it will make their already huge debt impossible.

An article in the Sunday Telegraph business section yesterday said that of all those affected, one group of Channel Islanders was hit hardest.

‘But the worst affected people – even more so than Icelandic and British taxpayers – are the 800 savers in Landsbanki Guernsey who lost access to their entire life savings,’ said business journalist Rowena Mason.

‘They were not covered by the UK Government’s bail-out,’ she added. 08-Mar-10.

http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2010/03/08/landsbanki-guernsey-savers-are-the-worst-off-of-the-lot/

[See referenced Telegraph article by Rowena Mason HERE.

The long awaited ‘Black Report’ into Iceland’s economic crisis is set to be delayed once again due to the long responses received from implicated parties.

The report by the Althingi investigation committee will be delayed by a further two to three weeks while committee members go over the more than 500 pages of answers received from the 12 current and former public officials formally invited to reply to committee accusations before publication of the report.

The report was originally scheduled for release last autumn and then delayed until the beginning of February, then the beginning of March and now, again, until two to three weeks into March, RUV reports. This time, the committee has not committed itself to a specific date.

A statement from the committee stated that the answers received represent the final materials needed and all that remains to do is to correlate the findings and print the extensive document. At this stage it is already logistically impossible to release it before the 11th March.  27-Feb-10.

http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/02/27/althingi-banking-report-delayed-%E2%80%98one-last-time%E2%80%99/

RECOVERING Landsbanki depositors’ money is down to the administrators, not the States, according to the chief minister. . .

Landsbanki Guernsey savers have accused the Guernsey Financial Services Commission of allowing the bank to advertise a worthless parental guarantee.

It follows the Icelandic Winding-up Board rejecting savers’ claims because Landsbanki Guernsey did not have a guarantee from its Icelandic parent company to back its deposits. . .

The GFSC does require subsidiary banks to have letters of comfort in place but it has always recognised that these are not legally binding and made that point plainly in the same consultation paper. . .

‘It is clearly incorrect for the LGDAG to “question the validity” of the chief minister’s recent assurances that Landsbanki Guernsey depositors would be treated fairly by the Winding-Up Board, as claimed by the LGDAG. I regrettably cannot do anything other than to express my disappointment that the LGDAG has sought to personalise the matter and in doing so misrepresent our position.’

Guernsey savers have so far had a little over two thirds of their money back.  22-Feb-10.

http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2010/02/22/landsbanki-cash-recovery-for-administrators-not-the-states/

DEPOSITORS in a Guernsey bank that went bust are angry that a guarantee from its Icelandic parent now appears not to be worth the paper it was written on.

Earlier this week the winding up board for Landsbanki’s affairs in Iceland rejected depositors’ claims under the Guernsey bank’s parental guarantee. And the people who banked at Landsbanki Guernsey are now accusing the Guernsey Financial Services Commission of not doing its job properly.

A group representing the Jesey and Guernsey depositors said that the regulator allowed the bank to advertise a parental guarantee to potential customers that has not now been honoured. They also say that recent assurances given by Guernsey Chief Minister Lyndon Trott, that depositors would be treated fairly by the winding up board, were worthless.

The group is calling for an independent public inquiry to investigate what went wrong and to hold people to account.

About 100 Jersey depositors are still owed about £2 million after the bank failed in October 2008. Over a period of time, they have been repaid chunks of their savings and have so far got back about two thirds. 20-Feb-10.

http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/02/20/depositors-seek-landsbanki-i

Iceland will meet Britain and the Netherlands in London on Monday to present a new proposal for repaying more than $5 billion (3.2 billion pounds) lost in Icelandic bank accounts, sources familiar with the plans said. . .

A Icelandic government source has said the new proposal involves quicker repayment of the country's debt from a sale of the assets of failed bank Landsbanki.

A spokesman at Iceland's finance ministry said the government hoped to present the new proposal "very soon."

One creditor nation source said he "could not rule out" that the talks would stretch more than one day.

The source also said the talks were not likely to be at the highest levels, particularly as European Union finance ministers are meeting early this week to focus on the public debt crisis in Greece.  IBTimes website - 15-Feb-10.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/20100215/icesave-talks-start-london-monday-sources.htm

Landsbanki Guernsey depositors around the world have begun to receive a message from the Winding-Up Board of the bank’s Icelandic parent saying that it has “decided to reject” their claims for compensation on the grounds that “it has not been sufficiently shown” that the parent entity had ever agreed to guarantee its Guernsey arm's liabilities.

News of the rejection of the depositors’ claims for compensation was disclosed to International Adviser today in an email from Landsbanki Guernsey depositor Mark Ashbey, a member of the Landsbanki Guernsey Depositors’ Action Group (LGDAG).

Another member of the group, Matthew Dorman, said both his organisation and the joint administrators, Deloitte, “had been expecting this” and would be submitting objections to the decision to the Winding-Up Board. They will also continue to pursue their legal actions against Landsbanki Iceland and the Icelandic government, he added.

Spokespersons for Deloitte could not immediately be reached.

Around 1,600 depositors, more than 90% of them British, had some £120m on deposit in the Guernsey branch of Landsbanki when it collapsed in October 2008. At the time, Guernsey did not have a depositors’ compensation scheme in force. So far the Guernsey depositors have received about 67.5p in the pound, unlike Landsbanki depositors in the UK and Netherlands, who received 100% of their money months ago.  International Adviser website - 14-Feb-10.

http://www.international-adviser.com/lwm/article/1230

There is much talk in the Icelandic media these days over remarks made last week by two high ranking Dutch officials during a hearing by an investigative committee. One is the head of the Dutch National Bank [their central bank], and the other an official with the Dutch Financial Supervisory Authority. . . .

Evidently few people in Iceland seem to doubt that their claims are true. However, there has been much speculation over just who lied. Initially, it was to have been the head of the Central Bank here in Iceland [presumably Davíð Oddsson], then there were reports that it had been the heads of the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority. No one seems to know exactly who was responsible for conveying the misleading information.

Predictably, Oddsson went on the offensive trying to convince everyone that it wasn’t him – hauling out the old chestnut about how he tried to warn everyone in government about what was imminent months before the  collapse but nobody listened. Unfortunately, as pointed out in a Fréttablaðið editorial a couple of days ago, there is no documented evidence that Oddsson’s claims are true.  Iceland Weather Report website - 08-Feb-10.

http://icelandweatherreport.com/2010/02/who-lied.html

Arnold Schilder, former head of the inner supervision of the Dutch Central Bank said the Icelandic Central Bank had lied about the situation of Landsbanki’s Icesave savings scheme up until the banking collapse of October 2008 during a parliamentary inquest into the global credit crisis in the Netherlands yesterday.

“I have to say that our Icelandic colleagues were not telling us the truth. We often asked them straight out how it was going and they always answered with Hallelujah stories, that nothing was wrong. Not even in August and September 2008,” Schilder told the parliamentary committee, RÚV reports.

Schilder said Nout Wellink, the president of the Central Bank of the Netherlands, had also received similar answers.

Wellink was also called before the parliamentary committee yesterday to discuss other aspects of the crisis. On Thursday he will answer the committee’s questions about Icesave. That day, Dutch Minister of Finance Wouter Bos will also be called before the committee.  02-Feb-10.

http://icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=29314&ew_0_a_id=357279

After looking more at this interesting document called: Report on moratorium and other issues concerning Landsbanki Íslands hf. One chapter caught my attention more than others. Page 9 and 10 in the document is the explanation of the banking crisis and economic crisis in Iceland. . .

This [the report] is correct up to a point. They stretch the explanation far by blaming the whole collapse in Iceland and of the banks on the international credit liquidity crisis or the credit crunch that went in free fall with the Lehman Brothers collapse.

To say that this was the only reason is not only simplistic, but misleading as well. What about all the money leaving all the banks? What about all the loans and financial acrobatics to owners, offshore companies and strange business partners? What about all the investments abroad and in Iceland in companies and individuals without collateral?

To answer this so people understand: It is insane for the resolution committee to actually blame the whole system failure in Iceland on the international credit crunch. Independent Icelandic News website 30-Jan-10.

http://icelandtalks.net/?p=878

The newly restored Landsbanki is full of secrets. For a government bank it should seem incredible that the information flow is blocked by the bank director Ásmundur Stefánsson and the solvency committees of the fallen bank (Old Landsbanki).

There are two main things that have been surfacing recently. First is the massive 30 billion ISK loan to The Icelandic Group AFTER the economic collapse. The Icelandic Group is the golden calf of the Icelandic fishing industry. The company has exported fish for decades and should by all normal business standards make insane amounts of profit.  The company on the other hand has fallen into the hands of the greedy and stupid. The goldmine has turned sour by the owners’ investments that can be considered as “insane”.  Independent Icelandic News website - 18-Jan-10.

http://icelandtalks.net/?p=839