Minority shareholders victorious (Dagens Næringsliv)

The Court of Valuation has concluded that Aker RGI’s former minority shareholders should receive NOK 166 per share. Kjell Inge Røkke had offered NOK 105 and must therefore pay out almost NOK 350 million extra. Representatives for the minority shareholders say the victory sets an important precedent for the entire stock market.

Røkke appeals verdict (NTB)

Celebrations among Aker RGI’s former minority shareholders after the court ruling raising the value of their shares were short-lived. Just hours after the Oslo District Court handed down its verdict, Kjell Inge Røkke announced his intention to lodge an appeal. It will probably be over a year before the parties meet again to present their case to the Court of Appeal for a final ruling. "We are appealing because we maintain that it is the shares’ stock market value which must determine the compulsory redemption price, not the company’s underlying asset value," said Arne Tjaum of the law office, BAHR.

I take responsibility (Aftenposten)

"The crisis in the Labour Party has obviously had a strong impact on me. You would have to be inhuman to remain unmoved by the fact that the party you believe in and love dearly is in such difficulties, and by the fact that the political right is stronger than it has been for many years," said Jens Stoltenberg, just days before he is due to tell the party’s selection committee whether he is ready to shoulder the country’s most thankless political task – taking the helm of a party which has run itself aground, while its crew is busy abandoning ship and the voters are floating around like so much flotsam and jetsam.

No one wants EU debate (Dagsavisen)

Labour Party chairman Thorbjørn Jagland’s attempt to kick start a new EU membership debate has stalled. Neither the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) nor the Conservative Party – or for that matter any of the other parties represented in the Storting – are interested. At question time in the Storting yesterday, Foreign Minister Jan Petersen (Con) said that the Government would neither prepare nor send an application for EU membership during this parliamentary term. Mr Jagland accused Mr Petersen of not being active enough over EU membership, but other political opponents have praised the Foreign Minister’s stance. They do not want a debate on Norwegian EU membership at this time.

Worth Noting

• The Labour Party’s executive committee looks set for an influx of younger members. Cronies of Thorbjørn Jagland, such as Yngve Hågensen – former president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) – and Grete Knudsen have decided to step down. (Aftenposten)
• Implementation of the so-called 15-month rule cost the Norwegian state NOK 311 million in 2001. According to the Immigration Directorate, around 650 people, including many from Russia and the Ukraine, were granted residence permits in Norway last year because it had taken longer than 15 months to process their application papers. (Aftenposten)
• Today it will be decided if Norway has committed a human rights violation when it took more than seven years to deport a man who had had a deportation order served on him. (Dagsavisen)
• In June Norway will reduce the size of its contribution to the KFOR forces operating in the Balkans. A number of Nato countries now believe the need for soldiers in the region has been reduced. (NTB)
• On Thursday the Norwegian Competition Authority expected to refuse Statkraft permission to acquire 45 per cent of Agder Energi, reports the newspaper Fædrelandsvennen. According to the Competition Authority, the acquisition would give the Statkraft Group control of almost 50 per cent of electricity production in southern Norway. The shares which Statkraft has offered to buy from 30 local authorities in Agder County are valued at around NOK 6 billion. (NTB)
• Trade and Industry Minister Ansgar Gabrielsen believes a merger between state-owned Cermaq and privately-owned Ford Seafood is a good way to water-down state ownership. It was announced yesterday that Fjord Seafood and Cermaq, in which the state holds an 80 per cent stake, are to merge. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• The Labour Party seems to have hit bottom, according to a poll on EU membership carried out by MMI in March on behalf of Dagbladet and NRK. The party has the same level of support as it had last month, which was a record low. The Progress Party makes the biggest gain, and is now the country’s largest party with the backing of 25.3 per cent of the electorate. The Conservatives slip back, but are still larger than the Labour Party. (Dagbladet)
• The Committee for Afghanistan and the Committee for Palestine seem to have received a boost following recent developments in Afghanistan and the Middle East. (Vårt Land)
• The various sporting associations will no longer accept that the Norwegian Confederation of Sports restricts their freedom of action. They are now demanding more influence and more money. (Aftenposten)

Today’s comment from Aftenposten

When the results of a rule prove to be the opposite of what was intended, the rule needs to be looked at. And that must also apply to the peculiarly Norwegian rule which stipulates that applications for asylum which are not processed within 15 months almost automatically lead to residence rights being granted ‘on humanitarian grounds’. The rule was introduced in an attempt to speed up the processing of asylum applications and prevent people who had established themselves in Norway and thought they had a future here suddenly being uprooted once again. The 15-month rule is therefore a sensible measure, both for the asylum-seekers themselves and for Norwegian society. However, the flood of asylum-seekers has become so great that there is a danger it could become the admission ticket for a large number of people who do not really qualify for asylum. Hopefully it is this which Local Government and Regional Affairs Minister Erna Solberg was thinking about when she announced her intention to review the policy. But it will not help simply to abolish the rule. It is, after all, the Norwegian bureaucracy which has had problems processing asylum applications fast enough. Refugees and asylum-seekers should not have to pay the price for bureaucratic foot-dragging.