Yesterday afternoon The Supreme Court of Iceland affirmed the guilty verdicts handed down by the Reykjavík District Court in June of last year over seven out of nine former Kaupþing bank directors, convicted for major market manipulation and breach of trust, Fréttatíminn reports. The court, furthermore, extended the sentence of Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson by six months. In addition, the court handed down a guilty verdict for two defendants who were acquitted in district court.
This is one of the largest economic crimes to reach Icelandic courts, but altogether nine people were accused in the case, for market manipulation and/or breach of trust between November 1, 2007, and October 8, 2008.
Among the accused were Kaupþing’s directors before the 2008 financial crisis: Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, former director of the bank, Sigurður Einarsson, former board director and Ingólfur Helgason who directed the bank in Iceland.
All three received prison sentences in the Reykjavík District Court in June last year. At the time, four others received suspended sentences, and one woman was acquitted. Some charges against the bank’s director in Luxembourg, Magnús Guðmundsson, were dismissed, but he was acquitted of others.
Magnús Guðmundsson and Björk Þórarinsdóttir, a member of Kaupþing’s loan committee, both acquitted in district court, received a guilty verdict in the Supreme Court, but no sentence, RÚV reports.
