Monday 11 May 2009

Haven't a clue

This, from Towards Mutual Benefit, amuses me

From the website of the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs, my emphasis:

Icelandic Foreign Minister makes a formal complaint on British PM's comments

8.5.2009

The Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ossur Skarphedinsson, today made a formal complaint on comments made by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, during a session of Parliamentary question time. Minister Skarphedinsson called in the British ChargĂ© d’Affaires to Iceland to deliver a protest. The Ambassador of Iceland to the United Kingdom has also delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street.

Minister Skarphedinsson said that the Prime Minister’s comments of 7 May related to financial losses of the Christie hospital were unhelpful. In his comments, Prime Minister Brown inaccurately stated that the UK authories were not the regulatory authority in the case of Kaupthing, Singer Friedlander Bank, where the Christie hospital funds were deposited. Furthermore, the Prime Minister claimed that the UK authorities were in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on the rate at which Iceland can repay losses to British deposit holders.

Minister Skarphedinsson earlier today stresssed that Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander Bank is a British Bank, under the regulatory authority of the UK Financial Supervisory Authority. "We of course regret that the Christie hospital has suffered financially due to the seizure by the FSA of Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander, but there is no basis for linking this matter to the Icelandic depositors’ compensation scheme", said the Minister.
What's going on here? Does the Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander Bank fall under Icelandic jurisdiction as Brown told Parliament, or that of the UK, as the Icelandic government claims?
I'm quite willing to believe that the UK Financial Supervisory Authority hasn't a clue what banks it's supposed to be regulating and which one's it isn't, and so can't report accurately to Gordon Brown. The whole system's a shambles, and its all really really complicated.

1 comment:

  1. Evidently the Icelanders haven't got a clue either. There is no such body in the UK as the "UK Financial Supervisory Authority". Whilst the Nordic countries do have "Financial Supervisory Authorities", the UK has to make do with the FSA (Financial Services Authority).

    So Gordo probably was right.

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