No police investigation for husband of Norway's ex-prime minister over stock trades

The husband of former Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will not face investigation over his stock trading during her two terms in office, Norway's economic crimes agency announced Friday, saying it had found no indications that he had benefited from inside information.

Solberg, who was prime minister from 2013 to 2021, has faced intense political and media pressure because of the trading of her husband, Sindre Finnes, who made more than 3,600 share deals.

Pal K. Lonseth, head of the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, said his agency's task had been to assess whether Finnes received inside information from “either from Solberg or other sources, and whether there is evidence that he has used such information in his investments.”

“We have found no indications of that,” said Lonseth, whose agency is known as Oekokrim in Norwegian.

Solberg, 62, who has led Norway’s center-right party Hoeyre since 2004, has repeatedly said she wants to be the conservative prime ministerial candidate in the 2025 general election but it's up to the party to decide.

She said during a news conference Friday that she was “glad” about the national authority's decision, calling it “a clear and unambiguous conclusion that no indication of insider trading has been found.” Solberg said she thinks there is still support for her within Hoeyre.

In September, it was revealed that the husbands of Solberg and former Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt had traded stocks for years behind their wives' backs. Both had to explain why they were making decisions in office that could potentially enrich their spouses.

In a statement issued through his lawyer, Finnes admitted he lied to Solberg about his trades but he said he never acted on inside information, which would have been a criminal offense.

On Friday, his lawyer, Thomas Skjelbred, said Oekokrim's ruling made it clear that his client “has conducted completely legal trading in shares.”

As part of a government reshuffle last month, Huitfeldt was replaced. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said she was sacked because of “the matter of the purchase and sale of shares.”

After being scolded by the government’s legal department for failing to get to grips with her partner’s “financial activities,” Huitfeldt acknowledged in a statement that she “should have asked my husband what shares he owned.”

In local elections in September, Solberg's Hoeyre party came top, with nearly 26% of votes, up nearly 6 percentage points from the last elections in 2019.

Gahr Støre’s social democratic Labor party, which for decades was Norway’s largest party in local elections, came in second with nearly 22% of the ballots, down 3.1 percentage points from 2019.

Solberg was defeated by the Labor party at the 2021 general election.

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This story corrects the spelling of Oekokrim