A case against Jon Asgeir Johannesson in New York
The resolution committee of Glitnir, the failed Icelandic bank, is seeking to recover more than $2bn by filing a complaint in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan Reuters reports. The ResCom has sued six ex-officials and affiliated investors who the ResCom concludes committed fraud ‘to fill their pockets and prop up their own failing companies’ by engaging ‘in a sweeping conspiracy.’
The defendants are Jon Asgeir Johannesson, a well known retail investor in the UK through his private equity company Baugur, Ingibjorg Palmadottir his wife, Johannesson business partners Palmi Haraldsson and Hannes Smarason and Thorsteinn Jonsson, Glitnirs ex-CEO Larus Welding and ex-director Jon Sigurdsson. The highly interesting aspect of this case is that Glitnir’s auditor PriceWaterhouseCoopers hf is also a defendant, alleged to be complicit in the fraud.
The case is filed in the US because Glitnir raised money there by issuing bonds. It now seems that the winding-up committee is of the opinion that this money was then siphoned into the pockets of Johannesson and the others.
As reported earlier on Icelog the ResCom is also suing Johannesson, Haraldsson and Welding in a separate case in Iceland where a loan of ISK6bn appears to have been sold off for 1 krona. Johannesson’s business partners in the UK have been Sir Tom Hunter, Don McCarthy now CEO of House of Fraser where Johannesson was a major investor, Malcolm Walker a CEO of Iceland, another Baugur investment and Kevin Stanford.
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