Legal action signalled in Iceland row

The Government is set to resort to legal action to recoup billions of pounds paid out to cover the deposits of British savers in collapsed Icelandic banks, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury signalled yesterday.

By The Newsroom

Published 10th Apr 2011, 22:36 BST

A negotiated settlement to reimburse the UK was rejected for a second time by Icelanders in a referendum yesterday, a result Danny Alexander described as “disappointing”.

But stressed that the British Government had an obligation to continue to pursue the money.

About £3.5bn is due to Britain and the Netherlands, whose government also bailed out its citizens’ depositors after the 2008 bank crash.

“It’s obviously disappointing. It seems the people of Iceland have rejected what was a negotiated settlement,” Mr Alexander told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.

“It looks like this process will now end up in the courts,” he said. “There is a legal process going on and we will carry on through these processes to try and make sure we do get back the money that the British Government paid out in past years.”