If Dubai can get away with it...

At the start of the global financial meltdown, one of the countries hardest hit was Iceland. The Icelandic bank collapse affected not only Iceland but also people in the U.K and Holland.

Thousands of British and Dutch nationals had invested in a bank called Icesave and were left with nothing when the bank collapsed. The British and Dutch government had pressured the Icelandic government to compensate their nationals and the Icelandic government caved after being told an IMF bank loan would depend on compensation to British and Dutch nationals.

Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir had put together a bill, narrowly approved by the Icelandic parliament on December 31, that will payout 3.8 billion euros to the British and Dutch governments as compensation to more than 320,000 British and Dutch savers who lost money in the collapse of the Icelandic bank but the Icelandic president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, had so far refused to sign the vastly unpopular bill.

Under the Icelandic constitution, that means the bill would be put to a popular referendum. Since the bill is vastly unpopular, it is almost certain to be rejected by the Icelandic people and the British and the Dutch are up in hands about it.

Now it’s sad that thousands of British and Dutch savers had lost money in the collapse of the Icelandic bank but quite frankly Britain and Holland do not have a legal leg to stand on and here’s why;

Icesave is not a government bank. Icesave do not belong to the Icelandic government. I mean if Dubai can say Dubai World do not belong to the Government of Dubai, after years of “implying” that it was, how can you ask the Icelandic government to compensate other nationals for a bank failure that do not belong to the Icelandic government?

It doesn’t make any sense at all. To my knowledge, Icesave never pretended to belong to the Icelandic government so how can you ask the Icelandic government to pay for the bank failure? Especially when neither the U.K or Holland made a sound when Dubai said that Dubai World do not belong to them?

If Dubai can get away with it, why not Iceland? It’s that simple and Iceland got more of a case than Dubai ever did! Like I said before; If Dubai can get away with it, expect more of the same from other countries. Since Dubai had seemingly got away with itr, I expect Iceland to be but the first of many countries to try the same thing.