The fallout from the cash-for-quotas scandal dogging Icelandic fishing firm Samherji may have bigger implications for the nation of Iceland, according to Transparency International, which monitors international corruption.

The NGO annually compiles a list of 180 countries, ranking them from the least corrupt and transparent to the most corrupt and non transparent.

Iceland, whose ranking has fallen, currently sits in 14^th place, whereas Namibia, which is in 54^th place has been improving.

“We are going to have see if Iceland rises to the occasion by either showing that they are handling corruption when it rears its ugly head, or whether they are going to show they don’t have the necessary strength to do so and then probably continue to slide down the scale," Transparency International board member Edda Kristjansdottir told IntraFish.

Last week Thorsteinn Mar Baldvinsson temporarily stepped aside at Samherji to allow investigations into the company’s alleged wrongdoings in Namibia. Baldvinsson has since also resigned from the board of the shipping and fisheries company Framherji in the Faroe Islands.

Samherji has been distancing itself from its former managing director in Namibia, Johannes Stefansson, after he made serious bribery allegations against the company.

Last week WikiLeaks published more than over 30,000 documents (the first of two batches) it said it obtained from a whistleblower within Samherji.

No whistleblower protection in Iceland

Stefansson, now a whistleblower working with Nambian anti-corruption authorities, implemented bribe payments on the authorization of Mar Baldvinsson, and biggest shareholder, according to allegations reported by the website of Icelandic bi-weekly newspaper Stundin.

Interestingly Namibia has legislation in place to protect whistleblowers, while Iceland does not.

The cash-for-quotas scandal continues to provide new twists, having led to the resignations of two Namibian cabinet ministers, as well as the managing director of South Africa-based investment firm Investec Asset Management.

Events have also swept up Norwegian state bank DNB, in what is being billed as the biggest laundering scandal ever to hit a bank in Norway.

The scandal prompted Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir to call for swift action by regulators to dig into the allegations the company dealt out bribes in exchange for access to Namibian fish harvesting rights and that "no stone should be left unturned" in the investigation.

Iceland's reputation at stake

Separately, Icelandic fishing company Sildarvinnslan is rejecting claims CEO Gunnthor Ingvason sought the help of Samherji as part of an attempt to secure valuable fishing quotas from authorities in Greenland, the website of Icelandic state broadcaster RUV reports, citing Icelandic news site Frettabladid.

Affiliates of Transparency International in separate countries and regions are known as chapters. The organization is working towards developing a fully-fledged chapter in Iceland.

The Nordic chapter of Transparency International, currently including Iceland, issued a joint statement at its annual meeting held in Berlin this past weekend.

At the meeting following news of the Samherji scandal, attention was drawn to the fact that this is not the first scandal in the Nordic countries in recent years and that awareness of wrongdoing in the region may be growing.

Fisheries

Samherji cash-for-quotas scandal puts Iceland’s global reputation in jeopardy