Supervisory authority announces ruling on Intrum Justitia’s Norwegian operations

In the summer of 2007 it was discovered that Intrum Justitia AS distributed a number of letters with incorrect reminder fees. The incorrect letters were limited to two clients and represented 0.2 percent of the cases handled annually by the Norwegian subsidiary. The incorrect charges were caused by a programming error in a computer program. Immediately after the mistake was detected, the computer program was corrected and all those who received the letters were contacted and all incorrect charges were refunded.

Due to what happened, Intrum Justitia obtained the assistance of the accounting firm Ernst & Young to internally review its systems and processes. Their final report did not identify any substantive deficiencies, but did propose certain improvements and an action plan, which has already been implemented in large part.

Furthermore, Intrum Justitia has maintained a continuous dialogue with the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority, Kredittilsynet, to investigate the deficiencies. The supervisory authority’s ruling, as announced today, is that the errors are sufficient cause to revoke Intrum Justitia AS’s debt collection license, but that the company may continue operating until the matter is ultimately resolved by the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, to which Intrum Justitia has appealed Kredittilsynet’s ruling to recall Intrum Justitia AS’s license.

Intrum Justitia is continuing to pursue efforts to ensure the long-term viability of the operations and continues its focus on client relationships. At the same time the company will continue to implement the improvement plan based on Ernst & Young’s review. Their statement in this regard can be found on the company’s website, www.intrum.com.

Intrum Justitia Norway accounted for 3.6 percent of the Group’s total revenues in 2006.