First Panama Papers Casualty? Former Iceland Premier Calls On Current PM To Resign To “Prevent An Uprising”
As Guardian reports, the couple were living in the UK at the time and had been advised to set up a company in the tax haven in order to hold and invest substantial proceeds from the sale of Pálsdóttir’s share in her family’s business back in Iceland.
Gunnlaugsson owned a 50% stake in Wintris for more than two years, then transferred it to Pálsdóttir, who held the other 50%, for one dollar. The prime minister’s office now says his shareholding was an error and “it had always been clear to both of them that the prime minister’s wife owned the assets”. Once drawn to the couple’s attention in late 2009, the error was corrected.
Towards the end of Gunnlaugsson’s time as a Wintris shareholder, having returned to Iceland, he was elected to parliament as leader of the Progressive party.
Gunnlaugsson, who became prime minister four years later, never disclosed his Wintris shares on Iceland’s parliamentary register of MPs’ financial interests.
As the Guardian also reported earlier, in the video clip below, PM Gunnlaugsson walks out of an interview with Swedish television company SVT. Gunnlaugsson is asked about Wintris, which he says has been fully declared to the Icelandic tax authority. Gunnlaugsson says he is not prepared to answer such questions and decides to discontinue the interview, saying: ‘What are you trying to make up here? This is totally inappropriate.’
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