Hverjir vissu hvað – og hvenær?

Í pistlum sínum í Speglinum hefur Sigrún Davíðsdóttir hvað eftir annað velt fyrir sér atburðarásinni áður en breska stjórnin beitti svokallaðri hryðjuverkalöggjöf á íslensku bankana sem störfuðu í Bretlandi. Það er ljóst að áður var stjórnin í London búin að grípa í taumana fyrir hinn örlagaríka dag, 8. október – 3. októbrer hafði hún fyrirskipað að innlán bankana skyldu renna inn í breska seðlabankann.

Sigrún er á svipuðum slóðum í grein sem hún skrifar í Daily Telegraph. Þar spyr hvað hafi verið á seyði þessa örlagaríku haustdaga, hvað hafi vakað fyrir bresku stjórninni, hvers vegna hún hafi leyft íslensku bönkunum að starfa óáreittum og hvers vegna hún hafi loks gripið til svo harðra aðgerða, hvað íslenska ríkisstjórnin hafi vitað – og hvers vegna Seðlabankinn á Íslandi hafi veitt Kaupþingi 500 milljón evra lán, eftir að Bretar voru búnir að grípa inn í starfsemi bankans.

Greinin er full af spurningum sem þarf að fá svör við, og svo er komið ein athugasemd þar sem segir að Íslendingar verði að horfa í eigin barm og hætta að kenna öðrum um vandamál sín.

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Sigrún er á svipuðum slóðum í þessum Spegilspistli en hér er greinin úr Daily Telegraph:

“How could a bank apparently be well financed last summer and then go bankrupt in autumn?” asked a big client of one of the Icelandic banks when I spoke to him recently. The short answer is that banking is an elusive business based on trust – and trust was in short supply when the three Icelandic banks, Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir, failed last October.

The long answer as to why the three Icelandic banks collapsed so spectacularly will hopefully be answered in a forthcoming report by an Icelandic parliamentary commission. The word is already out that the saga will be a sinister one. An office of a special prosecutor set up in Iceland to deal with alleged fraud related to the banks underlines this message. This new Icelandic saga has a UK ramification: the prosecutor now co-operates with the Serious Fraud Office. However, the UK authorities have never clarified their action against the Icelandic banks a year ago.

BEFORE ACI Privatisation of the Icelandic banking sector was initiated in the late 1990s followed by the familiar pattern of revaluation of assets causing a boom, further fuelled by the international flush of credit. As seen elsewhere, Icelandic politicians cheered the banks on in awe, unwilling to restrain them with reasonable supervision. The close personal ties invariably found in small countries were widely known – and alarming. The banks were enfeebled by their many large exposures to very few people, by financing purchase of their own or the other banks shares and by poor corporate governance. The banks interconnections made it likely that should one fail, they all would.

However, British ministers assured Parliament in the summer of 2008 that the growing deposits in Icelandic banks in the UK were under control. The Financial Services Authority had not objected to Landsbanki and Kaupthings internet accounts – Icesave opened in 2006, Kaupthing Edge as late as February 2008. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, and other ministers have claimed that because of EU regulations the Icelandic banks were free to operate in the UK. That is a feeble answer: it is clearly wrong to claim that foreign banks can operate in the UK under more lax rules than UK banks. The approach towards the Icelandic banks is yet another example of the UKs light-touch regulation.

What were the specific circumstances leading to the Icelandic demise? In early September 2008 the European Central Bank announced it would tighten its lending rules – a clear threat to Lehman Brothers and Glitnir. Lehman failed on September 15; two weeks later Glitnir followed. On October 7 Landsbanki was taken over by the Icelandic supervisory authorities.

Though it should have been clear to Icelandic authorities how intertwined the fates of the countrys three banks were, it was strongly believed at the time that Kaupthing, the biggest, would survive – it procured a €500m (£463m) loan from the Icelandic Central Bank on October 6. But this didnt solve Kaupthings liquidity problems in the UK: on October 8 the Treasury stepped in to transfer Kaupthing Edge to ING, a Dutch bank, whereby Singer & Friedlander, Kaupthings subsidiary, failed, causing Kaupthing, the Icelandic mother company, to default.

A much harsher fate befell Landsbanki: although defaulted in Iceland the Treasury put out a freezing order on Landsbanki by using the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The Treasury believed that “action to the detriment of the UKs economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken by certain persons who are the government of or resident of a country or territory outside the UK”.

This Delphic utterance meant that suddenly the Anti-Terrorism Act was able to target the whole of Iceland, with serious effect for the countrys companies and individuals. It took weeks for the Treasury to define the target more accurately. However, the Treasury has never clarified why this nuclear option was necessary. What dreadful deeds did the Treasury so fear that only the Anti-Terrorism Act would do? Or was this only an unfortunate sign of nerves?

There has been no answer as yet – and neither has the whole story of the UK intervention been told: the truth is that on Friday, October 3, the FSA had already required Kaupthings and Landsbankis subsidiaries to place with the Bank of England the banks deposits from October 2 and 3. The FSA was obviously getting worried: after all, 170,000 clients had put £2.6bn into Kaupthing Edge and 300,000 clients had put £4bn in Icesave. Since the demise of Northern Rock the British government had been adamant that private deposit holders would not lose a penny.

Kaupthing complied but nothing came from Heritable, Landsbankis subsidiary, so on October 6 the FSA asked Heritable to sign over money held with Barclays and HSBC. The next day the Treasury transferred Heritables deposits to the Dutch bank ING. And, as mentioned above, it did the same with Kaupthing Edge on October 8.

There are several intriguing questions that the Treasury has never answered: why did it transfer the deposits from the Icelandic banks to a Dutch bank – one that needed to be saved by the Dutch government only a few days later? There are most likely wheels within wheels here: ING was yet another threat to the volatile UK financial sector, it got financial help for sorting out the Icelandic problem and as a consequence ING was strengthened – until the Dutch government bailed it out. By using ING the Treasury cleverly solved two problems with one action.

Now, a year later, many EU central bankers feel that Iceland was unjustly hit by unclear EU directives on deposits as Iceland struggled with the Icesave debts. The Icelandic government has not clarified what it knew of the UK action on October 3 – and possibly earlier, if the Icelandic Central Bank knew that the FSA had taken action against Kaupthing before the loan of €500m was issued. It is unclear why the British government was so complacent in the summer of 2008. The Government has kept quiet as to why the Dutch bank was used, what necessitated the use of the Anti-Terrorism Act – and its still a mystery why the Icelandic banks were allowed to operate unfettered in the UK.“

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Og hér er athugasemdin frá lesanda sem kallar sig jon livesey:

„One year on, questions about Icelands banking collapse still remain.“

Well Duh! Of course questions remain. The report of the Icelandic Parliament into the collapse of the Icelandic Banks has yet to be published.

Was this column, with its insinuations of wrongdoing – almost of conspiracies – rushed out before the publication of the Report could make it moot?

In pointing the finger at the UK, I think we are forgetting that it was the Treasury – in other words the British taxpayer – who rescued the depositors in Icelandic Banks, and in addition the Treasury made large loans to individual Icelandic Banks when they were in trouble.

This kind of finger-pointing and blame-the-victim may be a natural reaction for Icelanders, but maybe they should look in the mirror and ask themselves who founded Icelandic Banks, who allowed them to grow to such a ridiculous size compared to the Icelandic GNP, how much individual Icelanders profited from them, and who it was who allowed the Icelandic deposit insurance program to be so grossly underfunded.

When they have answered those questions – after all, we know Iceland will never pay its debts, but acknowledging them would be good for the soul – only then will it will be time to write conspiracy theory pieces blaming the UK for Icelands troubles.“