Niceland Banks to give Daventry money back

High fives all round at the local council in Daventry and Northampton who are both owed millions of pounds by failed Icelandic banks.

A ruling by the Icelandic Supreme Court has stated that organisations which invested in the country’s banks before the collapse of 2008 are to receive 98 per cent of their investments back.

Beautiful Iceland we should plan a visit to say thanks

Daventry, the most exposed in the county given the amount owed to the size of their capital budget, will recover nearly all £8 million of their investment deposited in some of the most high risk banks in the world in 2008.

The court ruling on Oct 30 2011, followed a decision by Iceland’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Glitnir bank’s winding up board against an earlier judgement by the Icelandic District Court in favour of UK depositors.  It now leaves the way clear for councils to reclaim their money.

Legal fees have been kept lower by councils using one firm of lawyers its been estimated that the total legal cost will be below one per cent of the outstanding amount.

The decision includes money deposited in Landsbanki, which was recently looking to sell off some of its assets, including a majority shareholding in frozen food store Iceland.

At the time it was claimed that local authorities had not been reckless with taxpayers’ money by chasing higher interest rates advertised in Icelandic banks and depositing over £840m. idaventry has previously reported that strong evidence was already in the public domain, triggering other investors into withdrawing their investments before the crash – including some Local Councils.

Why Daventry wasn’t advised better we will never know and why they still retain the same financial advisors is even more of a puzzle especially when this same firm was mentioned negatively in the House of Lords,  following the Icelandic bank debacle.

Just maybe out of gratitude to the people of Iceland, for taking on the debt of the bankers and people who ruined their economy, we should use some of this cash when it arrives, to send ambassadors from Northamptonshire to Iceland to promote trade and tourism between our two regions and to see how we can help them?