Icelandic District Court Rules in Favour of Borough Council

Local Conservatives are delighted that local taxpayers will see more Borough Council deposits placed with Icelandic Banks returned, following a ruling by the country’s District Court.

This means the £3 million, including interest, deposited in Glitnir Bank could be returned to Tamworth Borough Council very soon.

Iceland’s District Court ruled in favour of local authorities being given ‘priority creditor status’, when it comes to organisations getting their money back.

Tamworth Borough Council – similar to more than 100 other local authorities across the country – had placed deposits with Icelandic Banks. Even the Labour governments much prized Audit Commission, had over a million pounds in the same banks.

The borough council has already received £2.4 million back from Icelandic banks. This extra £3 million, with interest, takes the total to £5.5 million.

Cllr Robert Pritchard said: “When local Labour says the money was lost they are wrong or telling lies. We have been working hard to get the public money returned and that hard work is paying off. All local Labour councillors voted for the council treasury policy, that saw the council depositing money in high yield accounts back in 2007-8 and before then. So if they want to blame councillors, they have to include themselves in the blame game.”

He added,

“It is widely accepted that when Gordon Brown froze the Icelandic Banks UK assets with anti-terrorism legislation it triggered the collapse. This is another example of Labours financial bungling costing the Tamworth tax payer dearly.