Former Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, is in hot water due to her husband Sindre Finnes trading stocks over 3,650 times during Solberg’s two periods as Prime Minister from 2013 to 2021.
Sindre Finnes claims this was done behind Erna Solberg’s back, and that she had no idea of this during her time as Prime Minister of Norway.
There are currently uncertainties as to how serious this is and if he had access to insider information, but there are no doubts that Sindre Finnes has traded stocks which his wife had the opportunity to directly affect based on political decisions. This includes Norsk Hydro ASA.
He also traded in weapon stocks (Kongsberg Gruppen) and salmon farms (Mowi).
Finnes was clearly advised to not do any stock trading or any type of daytrading while his wife was the Prime Minister of Norway, and he stated to the Office of the Prime Minister that he would not do so.
Sindre Finnes said that he would move all his investments away from stocks and into investment funds back in 2017. These funds are managed by other investment brokers with no input from the owner of the stocks, which is a standard way for politicians to be able to keep their investments while also sitting in office
He even repeated the same message to the media on multiple occasions, saying things along the lines of “the most difficult thing about being married to the PM of Norway is that he could not trade stocks“.
Despite this, he clearly did, and did on average over 1 stock trade per day for the entire 8 years period.
Sindre Finnes made 1.8 million NOK profit during the time period
Sindre Finnes made a total profit over over 1.8 million Norwegian kroner from stock trading during Erna Solberg’s 8 years of being Prime Minister of Norway.
This is almost $200,000 USD in today’s markets, but slightly less back when he did the trades.
Nonetheless, it’s a serious amount of money!
Erna Solberg: “A Serious Breach of Trust“
Erna Solberg is adamant that she had absolutely no idea about her husband’s level of stock trading, and even said it was a “serious breach of trust” during her press conference on Friday 15, 2023.
She is also very clear that she never shared any insider information with her husband, and that she had absolutely no idea that he traded stocks at the level he did.
No one can know for certain if Sindre Finnes was able to extract insider information from his wife, but it has obviously put a big seed of doubt in the minds of many Norwegians.
Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) will investigate
Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) has announced that they are going to be looking closer at Sindre Finnes’ case, and determine if they want to pursuit it.
It is currently not clear if he has broken any laws or not. If he and Erna Solberg are truthful in saying that they never shared insider information, then he might not really done anything illegal. It’s currently very difficult to say if this is a case of insider trading, corruption or just a guy who want behind his wife’s back to trade stocks.
However, Økokrim is now going to investigate to find out if they want to press charges against him or not.