Jay Syrmopoulos – On Thursday, Iceland’s Supreme Court found nine bankers guilty of market manipulation, affirming the conviction of the seven defendants found in a June 2015 decision by the Reykjavik District Court, and handing down a guilty verdict to two defendants previously acquitted in district court.

The Supreme Court decision found that “[b]y fully financing share purchases with no other surety than the shares themselves, the bankers were accused of giving a false and misleading impression of demand for Kaupthing shares by means of deception and pretense,” according to the Iceland Monitor.

The bankers were found guilty of crimes relating to deceitfully financing share purchases – essentially the bank lent money for the purchase of the shares while using its own shares as collateral for the loans.

According to a report by Common Dreams:

No punishment has been handed down yet, although sentencing is set to come. The defendants worked at the major international firm Kaupthing Bank until it was taken over by the Icelandic government during the crash. The bank’s former director Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson, who had been sentenced to five and a half years in 2013 in a separate Kaupthing case, had his punishment extended by six months in response to the verdict. Continue reading →