Icelandic ministers kept in the dark?

Neither the Icelandic Minister of Finance nor the Minister of Trade was aware of the problems facing Icesave, a daughter company of Landsbanki Bank, MBL.is reports.

The head of the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority said at the weekend that Bjorgvin G. Sigurdsson, Minister of Trade was not informed about the issue this spring, as some have suggested.

Arni M. Mathiesen, Finance Minister said that the bank’s troubles had been discussed for some time; but that he had absolutely no idea that Landsbanki’s Icesave troubles would need such radical action before the beginning of September.

When asked if it was ill-advised to allow Landsbanki to start up Icesave services in the Netherlands in May in light of the parent company’s difficulties, he says he had not followed how the matter had evolved, and did not know who took the decision. The decision, he says, did not fall on him to make.

icenews.is