Supreme Court Confirms: Jailtime For Bankers

The Supreme Court has sentenced several key players in a market manipulation case within Landsbanki, confirming sentences handed down to the bankers by lower courts.

RÚV reports that former bank manager of Landsbanki Sigurjón Þ. Árnason, along with former Landsbanki investment bankers Ívar Guðjónsson, Júlíus Steinar Heiðarsson and Sindri Sveinsson, were all found guilty of market manipulation in Supreme Court yesterday.

Sigurjón was sentenced to a year and a half in prison; Ívar received two years; and Júlíus and Sindri received a year each.

The charges against them stem from their activities at the bank between November 1, 2007 and October 3, 2008. During this time, the four conspired to artificially inflate the value of shares in the bank, with the court finding they deliberately “deceived investors, depositors, the government, and society as a whole.”

These sentences confirm guilty verdicts three of the four received in Reykjavík District Court in November 2014. At that time, Sigurjón was sentenced to a year in prison – nine of which were probationary – while Ívar Guðjónsson and Júlíus Steinar Heiðarsson were sentenced to nine months each, six of which were probationary, and Sindri was found not guilty.

Furthermore, Sigurjón was sentenced by the Supreme Court last October to three and a half years in prison for another market manipulation scheme, wherein he and co-conspirators sold Landsbanki shares to two companies already owned by the bank.