Sigrún Davíðsdóttir's Icelog

Kaupthing hf – the Winding-up Board of Kaupthing bank – has announced it has reached “an agreement concerning the settlement of all claims and liabilities between them. This agreement has been reached on a commercial basis with no admission of liability by any party. As a result of the settlement, the proceedings commenced in Iceland by Kaupthing against Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Bin Hamad Al Thani have been discontinued and all other claims and liabilities have been released. All other terms of the settlement remain confidential.”

According the SIC report Kaupthing loaned companies owned by Sheikh al Thani to buy shares in Kaupthing. This loan was allegedly behind the purchase of Kaupthing shares in September 2008. As reported earlier on Icelog the Office of the Special Prosecutor has charged three former Kaupthing managers and Kaupthing’s second largest shareholder in relation to this loan in a case similar to Barclays and the Qatari investors: neither bank declared it had allegedly loaned the investors money to buy the shares. In addition, Kaupthing lent the Sheikh against future profits. The Sheikh has not been charged of any wrong doing in Iceland but according to Icelandic media the OSP has indicated it might want to call him in as a witness in this case.

So what is Kaupthing hf settling? The SIC report and the OSP charges indicate that as well as issuing two loans in ISK, now around €157m, one of the Sheikh’s companies got a loan of $50m. This loan was “parts of the profits from the transaction” according to a Kaupthing overview of loans issued or discussed in one of the bank’s credit committees just before it collapsed. According to the writ, these three loans have never been repaid.

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