Meanwhile, in Iceland, the 26th banker has been jailed for their role in the 2008 financial crisis

The Independent i100

While British and American bankers who brought the world's economy to its knees in 2008 have barely faced the consequences for their actions, in Iceland, it's a different story.

The Nordic nation, which was one of the worst affected by the 2008 financial crisis, has sentenced 26 bankers to a combined 74 years in prison.

In two separate rulings last week, the Supreme Court of Iceland and Reykjavik District Court sentenced six top managers of two national banks for crimes committed in the lead up to the banking sector's collapse, bringing the total number of people who have faced the music for their roles in the crash to 26. 

At the moment the maximum penalty for white collar crime in Iceland is six years. 

Iceland deregulated its financial sector in 2001, and manipulation of the markets by bankers led to a system-wide meltdown when the global economy tanked in 2008. 

Iceland's economy is now in comparatively rude health since the country was forced to borrow heavily from the International Monetary Fund seven years ago. 

As Iceland's president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said when asked how the country recovered so quickly:

"We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years."

"We introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re seeing in Europe.

In the US and the UK, of course, we just bailed them out. 

HT US Uncut

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More:This banker has raised millions for the Conservative party. He's just been knighted
More: Bankers more likely to lie, cheat

Wall Street Stunned As Iceland Dares To Jail Banker Involved In 2008 Crash

Zero Hedge 

The impossible is possible. Never say never. Wall Street bankers are staring agog at headlines coming from Europe where, in Iceland, the former chief executive of one of the largest banks in the country which was involved in crashing the economy in 2008 has been sentenced to jail time. As Valuewalk reports, in receiving a one year prison sentence, Sigurjon Arnason officially became the first bank executive to be convicted of manipulating the bank’s stock price and deceiving investors, creditors and the authorities between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 2008, as the bank’s fortunes unwound, crashing the economy with it. It appears he was as shocked by the verdict as Wall Street-ers are, "this sentence is a big surprise to me as I did nothing wrong." It was likely all for the people's own good...

 

 
Via ValueWalk,

Some thought it would never happen. But in Iceland, the former chief executive of one of the largest banks in the country which was involved in crashing the economy in 2008 has been sentenced to jail time.

Iceland banker the first to manipulate bank’s stock price

In receiving a one year prison sentence, Sigurjon Arnason officially became the first bank executive to be convicted of manipulating the bank’s stock price and deceiving investors, creditors and the authorities between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 2008, as the bank’s fortunes unwound, crashing the economy with it.  Landsbanki was one of three banks that had tallied nearly $75 billion in debt before the final curtain was drawn.

What, me guilty? was the bank executive’s response upon learning of his fate. “This sentence is a big surprise to me as I did not nothing wrong,” Arnason was quoted as saying in a Reuters article after he learned of his punishment.  Amason had not decided if he was going to appeal the decision to the supreme court, as the appeal process might take longer than his sentence.

Other Iceland bank executives also convicted

The Reykjavik District Court had lopped off nine months of Arnason’s sentence, saying they were suspended.  Other bank executives involved in the situation were convicted: Ivar Gudjonsson, the former director of proprietary trading at the bank, along with Julius Heidarsson, a former broker at the bank. They each received nine-month sentences and six of those nine months were immediately suspended by the court.

All pleaded innocent to the charges, as the the fallout from the 2008 crisis continues to this day in the north Atlantic island and around the world.  As a sign of thawing in the crisis, Reuters reported that earlier in the week Landsbanki, the successor to the failed Landsbankinn, agreed to extend a deadline to restructure bonds to the end of the year. If a bond restructuring agreement is reached, it could help the government lift capital controls which were imposed due to the crisis.

Icelandic Bárðarbunga volcanic eruption begins

Watts up With That?

From the Icelandic Met Office

It is believed that a small subglacial lava-eruption has begun under the Dyngjujökull glacier.

The aviation color code for the Bárðarbunga volcano has been changed from orange to red. Image follows.

Read more

Let Banks Fail Is Iceland Mantra as 2% Joblessness in Sight

Washington Post/Bloomberg News

Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save. Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal.

While the euro area grapples with record joblessness, led by more than 25 percent in Greece and Spain, only about 4 percent of Iceland’s labor force is without work. Prime Minister Sigmundur D. Gunnlaugsson says even that’s too high. The island’s sudden economic meltdown in October 2008 made international headlines as a debt-fueled banking boom ended in a matter of weeks when funding markets froze. Policy makers overseeing the $14 billion economy refused to back the banks, which subsequently defaulted on $85 billion. The government’s decision to protect state finances left it with the means to continue social support programs that shielded Icelanders from penury during the worst financial crisis in six decades. 

Of creditor claims against the banks, Gunnlaugsson says “this is not public debt and never will be.”

Successive Icelandic governments have forced banks to write off mortgage debts to help households. The government’s 2014 budget sets aside about 43 percent of its spending for the Welfare Ministry, a level that is largely unchanged since before the crisis. Inflation, which peaked at 19 percent in January 2009, ..... was 4.2 percent in December. To support households, Gunnlaugsson in November unveiled a plan to provide as much as 7 percent of gross domestic product in mortgage debt relief. The government intends to finance the plan, which the OECD has criticized as being too blunt, partly by raising taxes on banks.

Read more

 

Four Bankers in Iceland Sentenced to Jail for the FRAUD they committed. Including the Chairman of the Bank.

Grapevine 

In a landmark ruling, Reykjavík District Court sentenced four former executives of Kaupthing Bank to between 3 and 5 1/2 years in prison for financial crimes dating back to 2008.

 Vísir reports that former Kaupthing director Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson received the heaviest sentence: five and a half years, minus time already spent in custody. He was also sentenced to pay 33.4 million ISK in legal fees.

Former Kaupthing chairperson - and former Interpol fugitive - Sigurður Einarsson was sentenced to five years, and a total of 14.3 million ISK in legal fees.

 Investor Ólafur Ólafsson was sentenced to three and a half years, and 20.6 million ISK in legal fees.

 Former director of the Luxemborg branch of Kaupthing Magnús Guðmundsson was sentenced to three years in prison.

 In the court's opinion, the four conspired to conceal the fact that one of the investors in Kaupthing, Mohammad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, owned his 5.01% stake in the bank thanks to money lent to him by the bank itself.

Read More

 

Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy

ICH

The easiest way to understand Europe’s financial crisis is to look at the solutions being proposed to resolve it. They are a banker’s dream, a grab bag of giveaways that few voters would be likely to approve in a democratic referendum. Bank strategists learned not to risk submitting their plans to democratic vote after Icelanders twice refused in 2010-11 to approve their government’s capitulation to pay Britain and the Netherlands for losses run up by badly regulated Icelandic banks operating abroad. Lacking such a referendum, mass demonstrations were the only way for Greek voters to register their opposition to the €50 billion in privatization sell-offs demanded by the European Central Bank (ECB) in autumn 2011.

The problem is that Greece lacks the ready money to redeem its debts and pay the interest charges. The ECB is demanding that it sell off public assets – land, water and sewer systems, ports and other assets in the public domain, and also cut back pensions and other payments to its population. The “bottom 99%” understandably are angry to be informed that the wealthiest layer of the population is largely responsible for the budget shortfall by stashing away a reported €45 billion of funds stashed away in Swiss banks alone. The idea of normal wage-earners being obliged to forfeit their pensions to pay for tax evaders – and for the general un-taxing of wealth since the regime of the colonels – makes most people understandably angry. For the ECB, EU and IMF “troika” to say that whatever the wealthy take, steal or evade paying must be made up by the population at large is not a politically neutral position. It comes down hard on the side of wealth that has been unfairly taken.

Read more

Iceland Arrests Former CEO Of Failed Bank

Now this is more like it! These Icelanders know how to take care of their country. First they told the IMF and World Bank where to go now they are doing some mopping up of the causes.

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 AP News

Reuters


Iceland's special prosecutor arrested the former chief executive of Glitnir Bank on Wednesday and questioned nearly two dozen people related to the collapse of the bank in 2008.

Glitnir Bank was the first of Iceland's top three commercial banks to collapse three years ago, imploding under the weight of huge debts racked up during years of aggressive expansion.

Special prosecutor Olafur Hauksson said his office had made several arrests on Wednesday -- the first for activities related to Glitnir. He told local media that former CEO Larus Welding would be held in custody for up to one week.

"Welding is being held in the interest of the investigation in order to prevent him for influencing other suspects or removing evidence that we're after," he was quoted as saying by Morgunbladid.

Hauksson said he had initiated nine new investigations, made several arrests and questioned nearly two dozen people related to the fall of Glitnir.

Inquiries are being made into the purchase of Glitnir's shares, as well as into loans provided to a number of firms to purchase Glitnir shares. It also investigated a 15 billion Icelandic crown ($126 million) guarantee provided by Glitnir in connection with a share offering in FL Group.

The prosecutor has also been conducting investigations at Kaupthing and Landsbanki. Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir all collapsed in the space of a week during the 2008 crisis.

Iceland’s loud No

Le Monde Diplomatique

Can't pay back, won't pay back

The people of Iceland have now twice voted not to repay international debts incurred by banks, and bankers, for which the whole island is being held responsible. With the present turmoil in European capitals, could this be the way forward for other economies? by Silla Sigurgeirsdóttir and Robert H Wade

The small island of Iceland has lessons for the world. It held a referendum in April to decide, more or less, whether ordinary people should pay for the folly of the bankers (and by extension, could governments control the corporate sector if they depended on it for finance).

Sixty per cent of the population rejected an agreement negotiated between Iceland, the Netherlands and the UK to pay back the British and Dutch governments for the money they spent to recompense savers with the failed bank Icesave. That was less resistance than the first referendum last spring, when 93% voted no.

The referendum was significant since European governments, pressured by speculators, the IMF and the European Commission, are imposing austerity policies on which their citizens have not voted. Even devotees of deregulation are worried by the degree of the western world’s servitude to unconstrained financial institutions. After the Icelandic referendum, even the liberal Financial Times noted with approval on 13 April that it had been possible to “put citizens before banks”, an idea which does not resonate among European political leaders.

Iceland is an unusually pure example of the dynamics that blocked regulation and caused financial fragility across the developed world for 20 years. In 2007, just before the financial crisis, Iceland’s average income was the fifth highest in the world, 60% above US levels; Reykjavik’s shops were stuffed with luxury goods, its restaurants made London seem cheap, and SUVs choked the narrow streets. Icelanders were the happiest people in the world according to an international study in 2006 (1). Much of this rested on the super-fast growth of three Icelandic banks that rose from small utility institutions in 1998 to being among world’s top 300 banks eight years later, increasing their assets from 100% of GDP in 2000 to almost 800% by 2007, a ratio second only to Switzerland.

The crisis came in September 2008 when money markets seized up after the Lehman meltdown. Within a week, Iceland’s three big banks collapsed and were taken into public ownership. Moody now listed them among the 11 biggest financial collapses in history. [...]