On Friday last week, the news broke in earnest that Sindre Finnes, the husband of Conservative Party leader and former Prime Minister Erna Solberg, has conducted extensive share trading while Solberg was Prime Minister. Erna Solberg announced the news herself at a press conference four days after the municipal elections were held, in which the Conservative Party did very well. For Solberg’s part, a lot will therefore be about the timeline in the weeks leading up to the election. How much did Solberg know about all the share deals – and when. The lingering question is whether there can be reason to believe that she deliberately avoided telling the public what she knew about Finnes before the local elections, because she was afraid that it could affect the election results. That she withheld negative information about herself, which could have weakened Høyre’s support. Another central question is whether she should have demanded this information from Finnes much earlier. Could have asked already in 2014 The answer to whether the information about Finnes could have changed the election to a large extent is of course hypothetical. It is still important to get an answer as to whether she has withheld information on purpose. If she has, it will obviously weaken her trust both internally in the party and with Conservative voters. This may also have consequences for the general election in 2025. And it is frankly easy to understand that there will be speculation about the timing. As many have noticed, news already wrote in 2014 that Finne owned shares. Solberg had then been prime minister since the autumn of 2013. Now we know that from the autumn of 2013, and eight years on, Finnes has bought and sold shares 3,600 times. The level of activity is very high, also seen through the eyes of experienced managers and other players in the share market. On certain days, he has carried out dozens of trades, and he has also bought and sold shares in the same company within the same day. He even dumped shares on the same day that Solberg closed the country in 2020. Behind her back Solberg said on Friday that the stock trades have taken place behind her back, and that Finnes has run an extensive cover operation to hide the extent from her. But how likely is it that she has not suspected anything at all? According to Solberg, Finnes took measures so that the share trades did not appear in the shareholder register, which shows the shareholding at the end of each year. However, it has emerged that the portfolio was far from identical at the end of each year, so that she could have already had reasons to carry out further investigations. May have chosen not to ask Did she simply choose not to ask? Why didn’t she ask in 2014 when news made an attempt? Or in 2017 when Dagbladet looked at the case? Or immediately after E24 half a week before the local elections showed her a far more comprehensive list of share deals than had previously come to light. How difficult is it really to say: “Sindre, show me the whole list, how many shares are there”? Finnes could pick up the mobile phone, log into the online bank, press the tab for investor information and show her. Scrolled down the page and said “so Erna, this is what the list looks like”. It’s not much more hocus pocus than that. After a few minutes of scrolling, she had quite quickly been able to see that there were far more shops here than usual. Probably wanted the whole picture A mitigating circumstance is that Solberg probably wanted the full and complete picture of all share transactions before she went public, and that data far back in time may be a little more difficult to obtain. The question is still whether she should have come out with what she knew more immediately, especially because there was an election just around the corner and it would have been a neat thing to do to the voters. Whatever happened in the back room, it just doesn’t look good. It is also not good for trust in either her or the Conservative Party that there is a doubt as to whether she is telling the full truth. It remains to be seen how weakened the confidence of the electorate is. In any case, we must expect that the pressure on Solberg will increase in the future.
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It is honestly easy to understand that there will be speculation – Speech
