Is this the beginning of Banks Paying for their Crimes?
Here is the English translation.
NEWS
March 19, 2013 13:36 (Updated: January 30, 2014 20:24)
"Nine individuals, including former Kaupþing CEO Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson and chair Sigurður Einarsson, have been charged by the Office of the Special Prosecutor in Iceland for having been party to universal market abuse involving Kaupþing Bank buying shares in itself.
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The headquarters of the now defunct Kaupþing bank.
Photo copyright Icelandic Photo Agency. |
The charge was issued last week and presented to the accused yesterday. This is the most extensive case the Special Prosecutor has ever been involved in and the most extensive of its kind in the world, according to Fréttablaðið.
Former director of Kaupþing in Luxembourg Magnús Guðmundsson and former director of Kaupþing in Iceland Ingólfur Helgason are also facing charges. The other five persons are all former employees of Kaupþing.
The case concerns five matters of market abuse which have been under investigation for a long time and have now been combined in a single charge.
These include Kaupþing’s acquisition of 29 percent of all available shares in itself in 2005-2008. The Special Prosecutor has reasoned suspicion that the trade was carried out with the knowledge and intent of the bank’s key executives, in a systematic and organized manner to maintain the value of shares.
The shares were purchased, among other methods, through special customers who were granted loans from Kaupþing for the acquisition.
The day before Kaupþing collapsed in October 2008, 92 percent of the portfolio of assets of the bank’s proprietary trading was shares in the bank itself."
BY ALËX ELLIOTT BUSINESS June 26, 2015 14:41 (Updated: June 30, 2015 09:43)
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| Sigurður Einarsson. Photo: Geir Ólafsson. |
"Sigurður Einarsson, former chairman of Kaupþing Bank, has today been sentenced to one year in prison in the so-called 'big market manipulation case' at the Reykjavík district Court. Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson was also found guilty, but was not sentenced on top of the existing prison term he is already serving following the Al-Thani case.
According to RÚV, Sigurður’s sentence will be in addition to the four year sentence he is already serving following the Al-Thani case.
Ingólfur Helgason, former president of Kaupþing Iceland, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years’ prison time.
Magnús Guðmundsson, former manager of Kaupþing Luxembourg, was acquitted and two other charges against him were dropped.
Bjarki Diego, former manager of the Kaupþing corporate division, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail.
Björk Þórarinsdóttir, who sat on the Kaupþing loans committee, was acquitted.
Einar Pálmi Sigmundsson, former head of in-house trade at Kaupþing, was handed down a two-year suspended sentence.
Peter Christian Guðmarsson and Brown bears Snær Björnsson, former employees in Einar's department, were given Both an 18 month suspended sentence.
The court case began in late April and the hearings were the most wide-ranging and complex in Icelandic legal history. Over 50 witnesses were called, and testimony lasted for many weeks. They were quizzed on the nine defendants’ suspected illegal trade in their own bank’s shares in the lead up to its collapse. Charges laid by the Special Prosecutor claimed that the widespread illegal trade was carefully choreographed and highly deceptive.
The defendants’ lawyers cost over ISK 250 million (EUR 1.7 million/USD 1.9 million). The State must pay nearly ISK 100 million, with the defendants covering the rest of the bill."
