Review Commission´s Report complete
Review Commission's Report complete The independent Review Commission, which has reviewed the role of the SAS Board of Directors in the SAS/Maersk Affair, submitted its report to the SAS Board of Directors on Sunday, September 16. The Commission investigated whether the Board and its individual members: · received prompt, relevant and sufficient information about the SAS/Maersk cooperation agreement · on the basis of this information, tried to acquire insight into the detailed content of the cooperation agreement · acted adequately in relation to the information they had or should have acquired regarding the SAS/Maersk cooperation agreement In summary, the Review Commission made the following assessment. The Commission is unanimous in its findings. · The Board was in no way informed that SAS and Maersk had negotiated a secret addition to the official agreement, nor had it been informed that such an agreement was subsequently made. In the opinion of the Review Commission, the information that the Board actually received prior to the European Commission's dawn raid in June 2000 did not give the Board reason to believe that a prohibited agreement had been reached. Nor did the information give the Board members reason to try to acquire further insight into the detailed content of the cooperation. · Following the dawn raid, and prior to the EU's "Statement of Objections" in February 2001, the Board did not receive prompt, relevant and sufficient information about the content of the accusations. Even after taking this into consideration, the Commission directs criticism towards the Board for inadequate activity after the dawn raid, notwithstanding that the breaches of the competition rules could not have been undone. · The Board is criticized for the fact that the SAS/Maersk Affair is not mentioned in the SAS Annual Report for the 2000 fiscal year. · In addition, the Review Commission finds it questionable that the Board, at its meeting on August 7-8, 2001, and without further investigation, decided not to appeal the European Commission's decision in July 2001 on penalties of EUR 39,375 M (approximately SEK 360 M). On August 8, 2001, the Board of Directors of SAS decided to assign an independent external commission to review the Board's role in the SAS/Maersk affair. On August 15, the Board decided that the review would be conducted by Attorney Jørgen B Elmer (Denmark), Attorney Gudmund Knudsen (Norway) and Justice of the Supreme Court Johan Munck (Sweden). As the oldest of the investigators, Johan Munck had the role of Chairman of the Commission. The secretaries for the Review were graduate economist Ragnar Boman and Assistant Professor Rolf Skog. The Report by the Review Commission is available in its complete form, with a summary in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and English at http://www.scandinavian.net/news The Review Commission will be available to answer questions form the media on Monday, September 17, at 2:00 p.m., at the SAS head, Frösundaviks Allé 1, Solna, Sweden. BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF SAS AB ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/09/17/20010916BIT00040/bit0001.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/09/17/20010916BIT00040/bit0001.pdf