Yesterday there was a new spotlight on the fact that Erna Solberg’s husband Sindre Finnes bought and sold shares while Solberg was prime minister. Already in 2014, news wrote that Finnes would not share information about where he owned shares. Yesterday, the financial website E24 was able to tell far more details about Finnes’ activity. – I have never shared inside information with Sindre. Nor has he acted on any inside information about this. Relatively few purchases were made in this period, says Solberg to news. – We have known which companies he owned and made assessments based on that in relation to my competence. I was disqualified in one of the companies, the one my sister worked in – Mowi – I have therefore never participated in matters related to it. – What do you think about your husband actively trading shares while you were prime minister? – It is a well-known fact that he owned shares and had some purchases, but he significantly limited his activity in the stock market when I became prime minister, after conversations with the Prime Minister’s office and the guidance from there about which rules applied to this, says Solberg. The case in summary: Sindre Finnes, the husband of former prime minister Erna Solberg, traded shares in around 20 companies while she was prime minister. Finnes informed the Prime Minister’s office about the shares he owned when he took office in 2013. Finnes’ share trading will be part of a hearing on impartiality in control – and the constitutional committee in November Finnes says he reduced his activity in the stock market during the time Solberg was prime minister Finnes has not answered questions about whether Solberg ever shared inside information about the companies he owned shares in The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. Hydro shares Both when taking office in 2013 and later, Finnes informed the civil service at the Prime Minister’s office about which shares he owned. The salmon giant Mowi and the arms and technology company Kongsberg Gruppen were among the around 20 companies Solberg’s husband owned or traded shares in. – The few purchases and sales that were made during this period I tried to do according to the handbook for political management, Finnes told E24 yesterday. Finns wished yesterday not to comment on the matter to news. When later on one occasion he had doubts about whether he could make a concrete purchase, he asked them for advice, Solberg’s adviser and press manager in the Conservative Party, Cato Husabø Fossen, tells E24. Solberg took office as prime minister in 2013. In 2014, Finne owned shares in 14 companies. In 2015 he owned shares in 13 companies and in 2016 in 16 companies. In 2018, Finnes bought several shares in Hydro. SOLD: Erna Solberg’s husband Sindre Finnes indicates that he has followed the rules for buying and selling shares. Photo: Naina Helen Jåma / NTB Finnes has told E24 that he had talks with the then government councilor Nina Frisak about the shares he owned when Solberg became prime minister in 2013. – I then sold shares in several companies and informed the office about which shares I kept. He explains to the newspaper that he reduced his activity in the stock market “significantly” during the time Solberg was prime minister. news then knew that Finnes had, among other things, invested in Norsk Hydro. There he owned shares to a value of just over NOK 60,000. Wide investigation The information about Finnes’ purchase and sale of shares came the day after it became known that the husband of Anniken Huitfeldt has carried out around 100 share transactions in around 40 companies after she was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. Earlier this summer, Ola Borten Moe resigned as deputy leader of the Center Party and minister for research and higher education following revelations about problematic share trading while he was a minister. The control committee at the Storting will this autumn have a broad review of all the competency cases that have dominated the news this summer. Then both the issues affecting the current government and the previous government will be broadly covered. Thus, Sindre Finnes’ share purchase will probably also become a topic. – The sum of all the cases reinforces the need to restore trust, and then the Storting must take the lead, said Rødt’s Seher Aydar to news yesterday.
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– Never shared inside information with Sindre – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
