Landsbanki liquidation and repayment of claims
On 28 January 2013, the EFTA Court cleared Iceland of all charges, meaning that no loan agreement will be settled between the Icelandic state and the UK and the Netherlands, to guarantee their claim for repayment of Icelandic minimum deposit guarantees worth €4.0bn plus accrued interests. This claim will however still exist towards the Landsbanki receivership as a so-called "First priority claim", and will be met in full if the receivership succeeds to liquidate assets with a value equal to or in excess of this first priority liability.
The combined deposit repayment claims from retail Icesave customers in the Netherlands and Great Britain (including both the minimum depositor guarantees and the deposit values in excess of the Icelandic guarantee), were at first hand covered respectively by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), due to the inability/unwillingness for other Icelandic stakeholders to step in and ensure/guarantee immediate coverage for these claims. On 28 October 2011, the Supreme Court of Iceland ruled, that the UK FSCS and the Dutch DNB combined deposit repayments of respectively ISK 852.1bn (£4.459bn) and ISK 282.3bn (€1.668bn) should be repaid by the Landsbanki receivership as "priority claims" pursuant to Article 112 of "Act No.21/1991 on Bankruptcy", and noted these mentioned figures included contractual interest rates for the UK part and some extra penalty interest rates (6%) for the Dutch part for the period from 8 October 2008 until 22 April 2009.[11][12] Together these two claims amounts to ISK 1134.4bn (€6.704bn), which is equal to 86% of all "priority claims" towards the Landsbanki receivership. Among the other priority claims are also ISK 145.4bn deposit repayment claims (equal to 11% of all "priority claims"), submitted directly by more than 200 wholesale Icesave customers in the Netherlands and Great Britain, who initially received no repayment from their national authorities, but will now get repayment on equal terms - with equal priority status - from the Landsbanki receivership.[13]
As of 30 June 2013, the total value of the assets in the Landsbanki receivership (including the already repaid part of the claims) covered ISK 1531bn (€9.1bn), which was above the total amount of the priority claims at ISK 1325bn (€7.8bn). The final overall value for the assets is however still subject to change, as the receivership for various reasons has been granted extra time to liquidate all remaining assets until 2018, at a pace equal to approximately ISK 100bn per year. Repayment to the creditors happens step by step at the same pace as the liquidation of assets happens. The repayments so far happened through four tranches in 2011–2013, which already included a full repayment of all minimum deposit guarantees, due to their first priority status within the "priority claims".[14] As of 12 September 2013, the Landsbanki receivership had through liquidation of the first half of its assets, managed to repay the first 53.9% (ISK 715.2bn) of all the priority claims.[15][16]
According to the latest evaluation of the planned recovery of asset values, it is expected all "Priority claims" will have been fully repaid by the end of 2017.[14] Any additional claims for accrued interests after 22 April 2009 due to the delayed repayment of priority claims, will only be treated as secondary "General claims", and thus only be repaid once all of the "Priority claims" have been repaid in full, and then only to the extent it is possible on an equal footing together with all the other remaining ISK 1677bn (€9.9bn) of "General claims" towards the Landsbanki receivership.[17]
Note: 1 Liability was not repaid by cash from liquidated assets, but got settled by other means.
According to the Landsbanki Receivership's initial interpretation of the Icelandic law, the creditor claims in foreign currency towards a liquidated Icelandic financial company in receivership should only be repaid by an ISK-equivalent amount as per the currency exchange rate registered on the date when winding-up proceedings were initiated; which was as per 22 April 2009 for the Landsbanki receivership. Moreover, it was believed the creditors had no legal right to claim compensation towards the Landsbanki receivership for any potential losses they may suffer, because of exchange rate fluctuations after 22 April 2009.[17] On 26 September 2013, the Icelandic Supreme Court however ruled against this initial law interpretation of the Landsbanki Receivership, concluding all creditors should be fully repaid with currency amounts equal to the denoted local currency of their claim; meaning that when repaid with other currencies, then valuation of this amount should be calculated by converting it to the claim's denoted currency, according to the foreign currency exchange rates registered by the Icelandic Central Bank on the repayment date. Thus ensuring that all creditors bare no currency exchange risks, with these risks -and potential financial burdens- instead to be upheld solely by the receivership.[18][19]
As the Receivership mainly holds bank assets valuated in foreign currencies, the repayment of claims is likewise expected to be conducted through partial repayments mainly in foreign currencies, equal to the available cash currency basket stemming from liquidated assets on the payment day. Because of the currency mix being more or less equal when comparing the Claims with the held Assets, the risk for currency exchange losses is expected to be relatively low for the receivership. The table below provides an overview of the currency composition of the first 3 partial repayments and how currency exchange rates were at the time compared to 22 April 2009.
''Note: aCalculated as ISK-equivalent repayment value for the receivership by the entity of the FX 22 April 2009 valued claims, while adjusting for currency exchange rate fluctuations happening on each payment date.[14] For the example for the second repayment tranch, all creditors with claims in pounds received 1:1 repayment with cash in pounds; meaning that the repayment to these creditors had an ISK-equivalent account value then being 1:1 proportional with the ISK/Pound-rate on 22 April 2009. Contrary to this, the creditors with claims in euros/US dollars also received cash in pounds - but now at a time when these currencies had lost value against pounds - and thus the ISK-equivalent account value then was stronger with the same percentage compared to what the currencies had weakened against the pound; meaning that the repayment to these creditors had an ISK-equivalent account-value then with a relatively higher value for the receivership than 1:1, because of repaying US dollar and euro claims with a relatively stronger Pound currency compared to the 22 April 2009 registered exchange rates. Or to put in different words, the receivership by conducting the second repayment three years later than 22 April 2009 actually gained some extra positive income through exchange rate improvements for the specific cash currency (pound) involved in this repayment tranch. The applied method to calculate ISK-equivalent account values for the repayments, is in full compliance with the supreme court ruling, saying that all creditors shall be repaid by cash amounts equal to their claim as per its denoted currency, so when repaid with other currencies, then the value of this shall be booked according to the currency exchange rate registered at the repayment date. b ISK 14bn was returned in 2012 to the receivership from ESCROW accounts, as some of the remaining disputed claims got settled by the court in its favor. Thus the net total got reduced from ISK 662bn to 648bn.''[14]
How capital controls impact creditor repayment
Iceland elected a new government in April 2013, which as one of their top priorities wanted to negotiate a debt haircut towards foreign creditors of the three failed Icelandic banks now in receivership, as part of a deal to lift the long enforced (since November 2008) capital controls.[21] As the current capital controls only ban a swap/exchange of ISK denominated assets to foreign currency,[22] and as 97% of the Landsbanki receivership total assets are held only in foreign currency, this new Icelandic initiative will, however, most likely not affect the repayment scheme for the priority claim creditors in the Landsbanki receivership - who at the moment are forecasted to be fully repaid by the first 91.2% of the receivership assets. So even if the current capital controls remain in force at an indefinite time horizon, it will only be the last 3.2% of the assets (ISK 49/1531bn) that remain to be frozen or trapped in Iceland and can not be directly repaid, which then only would negatively impact the return rate for the creditors with general claims.[14]
The only minor risk for the receivership's "priority claim creditors" seems to be, that the receivership might face political demands to extend the maturity of its owned Glacier bonds towards the New Landsbanki, as part of the Icelandic government's overall capital control abolition initiative, which would then delay liquidation of this specific asset.
