At their annual meeting yesterday, the Financial Supervisory Authority announced that from now on they will make public the names of those individuals who violate the securities law and are fined by the government, reports the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, RÚV. The Authority also announced that it will start to assess the qualifications of new managing directors at financial institutions, pension funds, and insurance companies. According to RÚV the directors will be asked to answer questions, show their certificates and take a “knowledge test”.
Jónas Fridrik Jónsson, director of the Financial Supervisory Authority, said that the scope of the Authority has changed and increased substantially. Before, the Authority only supervised Icelandic companies, but now the operation will increasingly include cooperation with supervisory institutions in other countries to monitor international financial institutions based in Iceland.
According to the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority, last year, government fines were issued 14 times for insider trading. The Authority investigated 30 times whether laws on reporting requirements had been violated. The highest fines were ISK 750,000 and the lowest ISK 20,000.
Jónas Fridrik said the changes constitute fair demands to a market that is developing. He said that they were first and foremost preventive measures.
