The Reykjavík District Court acquitted the Central Bank of Iceland in a damages lawsuit brought by Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson, the former CEO of Samherji, Iceland’s largest fishing company. The case centred on the bank’s retention and handling of personal data collected during a 2012 search of Samherji’s offices, a matter of public interest because it involved data-handling by a national financial authority. The court published its judgment in Reykjavík this morning, according to reports on mbl.is.
Þorsteinn Már sued the Central Bank over its handling of material obtained while the bank was investigating Samherji for suspected violations of Iceland’s foreign exchange laws. Reports described his claim for damages as extensive, though the exact sum was not disclosed in the court’s summary. The disputed information was located on three hard drives seized in the March 2012 raid of Samherji’s offices.
The district court’s decision means the Central Bank will not be liable for damages in this long-running dispute over data handling following an official investigation. The judgment brings to a close this chapter in a matter that has drawn attention due to the size of Samherji and the prominence of its former CEO. Þorsteinn Már’s future legal options following the acquittal are not yet known.
Background
Samherji is a vertically integrated seafood company, operating in fishing, fish processing, land-based aquaculture, and sales, with headquarters in Akureyri in northern Iceland. It has subsidiaries in Iceland and England, and had around 958 employees at group level at the end of 2023. Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson led the company from its establishment in 1983 until he left.
Reykjavík, where the court is based, is the capital and largest city of Iceland, located on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay in the southwest. The city was officially founded as a trading town in 1786 and is now home to over a third of Iceland’s population.
Sources
- mbl.is (first reported) in Icelandic
- Mannlíf in Icelandic
- Viðskiptablaðið in Icelandic
- RÚV in Icelandic
- Vísir in Icelandic
- Fréttatíminn in Icelandic
Image: Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) · licence, original (resized) Illustrative image.
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