New report analyses the financial crisis in Denmark

The report is probably one of the most expected reports from a committee in recent times. It has been postponed twice. Nevertheless, it has only been 19 months and 22 days since the committee was established until the report on the reasons for the financial crisis in Denmark was published by Henrik Sass Larsen, Danish Minister for Business and Growth, and Jesper Rangvid, Professor at CBS and Chairman of the committee.

- The report gives an account of what happened and how different factors and players affected the financial crisis, says Jesper Rangvid.

Recognition of CBS
In January 2012 Ole Sohn, the then Minister for Business and Growth, appointed a small group of experts to analyse the reasons for the financial crisis and assess the effect of political measures.

Two out of six experts have experience from the banking sector: Jens Thomsen, former Governor of the Danish Nationalbank, and Peter Schütze, former bank director. Peter Schütze holds several positions of trust and is also Chairman of the CBS Board of Directors. Apart from the experts with inside knowledge of the financial sector, four academic experts were appointed. One of them is Anders Grosen from Aarhus University, the other three are professors from CBS: Finn Østrup, Peter Møgelvang-Hansen and Jesper Rangvid.

- It is a great recognition of CBS, which, both during and in the wake of the financial crisis have contributed expert knowledge to an area with so much at stake, says Jesper Rangvid.

The Minister asked the committee to:

• illuminate international factors as reasons for the crisis in the Danish financial sector,
• identify special national relations, which took part in the financial crisis,
• illuminate whether the liberalisation of the financial sector has had impact on the crisis,
• assess whether consultancy services from the banks have contributed to spreading the consequences of the financial crisis, and
• assess whether the tightenings, etc. that have taken place in order to prevent a similar crisis in the future have been sufficient and balanced enough, and if the supervision of financial companies can be strengthened with advantage.

New information brought to light
According to the chairman of the committee, this work has been an "exciting journey", and the report is composed of two parts - a retrospective part and a forward-looking part. The majority of the report is factual historiography, which maps what actually happened during the financial crisis in Denmark.

- It is a very exciting reading, and new information is also brought to light.

The other part is an assessment of whether the regulations and the government interventions have been sufficient to get Denmark back on track and minimise the vulnerability to a repetition of history.

- The committee and the report give an account of reasons for the financial crisis, but they do not claim whether any actions have given rise to liability. This is up to the courts and the politicians, says Jesper Rangvid.

For more information, please contact Jesper Rangvid, Professor and Chairman of the committee, email: jr.fi@cbs.dk or Mikael Koldby, Public Relations Officer at CBS, email mk.ea@cbs.dk, tel: +45 38 15 37 22.