Iceland court lifts gag order after public outrage

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — A court in Iceland lifted a gag order Tuesday that allowed Kaupthing Bank to prevent media coverage of a leaked file that discloses details of the bank’s weak position shortly before it collapsed in October.

The Reykjavik district magistrate lifted the order only hours after Kaupthing itself yielded to public pressure to stop pushing for the ban. The injunction had forbidden further coverage of a risk analysis report that had been leaked via the WikiLeaks whistleblower Web site.

National broadcaster RUV reported on the leaked document, prompting wider interest in the report.

The internal document compiled for the bank’s loan committee showed that Kaupthing made multiple huge loans to a number of companies that left it dangerously exposed to their potential collapse. In addition, the most important borrowers were the bank’s biggest shareholders.

Other blog sites and Internet chat rooms were quick to pick up the report, which was dated Sept. 25, 2008 — just two weeks before the bank was taken over by the Icelandic state to save it from bankruptcy.

Kaupthing said it had sought the court order to protect its customers’ financial information. The report contains details on more than 200 individuals and companies, many of them still the bank’s customers.

But it backed down after the ban sparked outrage in Iceland, where the public has demanded the right to know what dragged the nation into financial ruin last year. The court later accepted the bank’s decision.

The chairman of the Parliament business affairs committee, Alfheidur Ingadottir, told Channel 2 news that the initial injunction was reprehensible and called for a review of the laws on bank privacy.

Kaupthing Bank Director Finnur Sveinbjornsson said that the public and political backlash had been a big factor in the bank’s decision not to attempt to extend the court order.

“Media coverage over the weekend showed that there are clearly very different opinions about the laws on bank secrecy,” he said, while defending the injunction as the right thing to do in the circumstances.

Companies named as loan recipients in the report included key players in the rise and fall the Icelandic economy. Nicknamed the new Vikings by Icelanders, they ran investment companies that expanded quickly into various fields and many countries.

Brothers Agust and Lydur Gudmundsson, made their fortune with food producer Bakkavor but then expanded into investment activities. Through their biggest investment group Exista, they were key shareholders in Kaupthing, but Exista also owed the bank $2.6 billion, according to the report.

Jon Asgeir Johannesson bought everything from a string of British retail stores to iconic toy store Hamleys and food retailer Iceland through his biggest investment group Baugur, which went into administration in February. Johannesson’s many investment companies owed Kaupthing $2.5 billion, according to the report.

Father and son Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson and Bjorgolfur Bjorgolfsson owned and ran banking competitor Landsbanki, but borrowed $120 million from Kaupthing for various investment activities, according to the report. Gudmundsson suffered a $760 billion bankruptcy last week. His son is still a billionaire but has suffered substantial losses to his empire.

Vilhjalmur Bjarnason, director of the Iceland Shareholders Association and lecturer in business at the University of Iceland, said the report suggested Kaupthing may have broken laws.

“The bank had lent substantial amounts to interrelated companies, well exceeding the legal limit of 25 percent of its equity,” said Bjarnason. “The report also shows how the bank boosted its own value on paper by lending big shareholders to buy more shares in the bank,” he added.

“The only securities for the loans were the shares themselves. So there was nothing behind this capital.”