Iceland: The Supreme Court of Iceland rejected Samherji appeal

NordenBladet – The Supreme Court of Iceland yesterday dismissed an appeal from fishing company Samherji against the Reykjavík District Court ruling that sided with the district prosecutor and forced the KPMG auditing company to hand over bookkeeping information and financial statements for all companies in the Samherji group between 2011 and 2020.

Samherji released a statement today harshly criticising both the District Court judges and the district prosecutor. The ruling from the Supreme Court does not hide any of the names that were blurred out in the previous District Court and Landsréttur rulings.

The Supreme Court dismissal states that the appeal should not have been taken to the top court and that the Landsréttur appeals court ruling should have been final. The court published the verdicts of both Landsréttur and Reykjavík District Court, including all the names that had been removed previously.

Samherji released a strongly-worded statement on its website today, following the court’s decision.

There it says that the company has submitted a complaint about the working methods of Reykjavík District Court judges to the judicial review committee, and another to the committee that deals with complaints against the police about the conduct of the district prosecutor.

In its unsuccessful appeal to Landsréttur, Samherji complained that no evidence had been compiled by the time Reykjavík District Court took the case on, and claimed that the judge should have demanded the prosecutor submit more details on the documentation before deciding whether or not it could be demanded. That was not done.

Samherji’s complaint is directed against District Court judge Ingibjörg Þorsteinsdóttir, who ruled in the case, agreeing that the district prosecutor did have the legal right to demand the documents about Samherji from KPMG.