Charles Williams and Andrew Speirs – The Iceland Banking Saga – Fixing The Calamity

On 2 November we hosted another event about the Iceland Banking Saga.

In October 2008, Iceland’s three major banks went bankrupt after a decade of rapid growth and international expansion.  Over one weekend, the Government had to extract and support three new domestic banks to protect its financial system.

Charles and Andrew led the advisory team for the Icelandic Government involved in negotiating the new banks’ compensation settlement with creditors and in their overall recapitalisation. This is their explanation of how the banking interests of Iceland were protected in the face of international pressure from both governments and major financial institutions who had incurred huge losses as a result of the collapse.