Lawyer and Conservative member John Christian Elden confirms to VG that he has assisted his close friend Sindre Finnes with the share scandal.
Lawyer John Christian Elden was on Sunday evening making the list of Finnes’ share deals, according to Høyre.
He is a friend of Sindre Finnesand explains what he has helped with like this:
– To be a friend. Not demanding, but important task. Help to think is sometimes needed. I leave the law here to lawyer Thomas Skjelbred, writes Elden in an SMS to VG.
Skjelbred is a former deputy head of Økokrim, now a lawyer at Elden law firm. He confirms to VG that he is assisting Finnes.
– Yes, I can confirm that I have been contacted by Sindre Finnes and that he consults with me. I will come back to be able to comment on a later occasion, he adds NRK.
On Monday, Økokrim chief Pål Lønseth said that it could take weeks to decide whether or not they want to open an investigation into Solberg and Finnes.
3,640 stock trades
In the election campaign, Solberg received more and more questions about Finne’s activity on the stock market.
According to Solberg, her alarm only went off on Friday 8 September, three days before the election. The reason was an E24 case about 22 unknown stock trades. This case was published two days before this, on the evening of Wednesday 6 September.
Several of the companies on the list were unknown to Solberg and the Prime Minister’s office – and showed a greater scope than what Solberg had previously told about.
Finansavisen also mentioned several unknown share deals as early as 1 September.
Only four days after the election did Solberg present a list which showed that Finnes had done 3,640 stock trades while she was prime minister. This disqualified her in several cases – and has weakened her confidence with the people.
Solberg says that she did not know the total extent of the share trading, and called this a serious breach of trust from Finnes’ side.
On Tuesday evening, Høyre presented its timeline over the handling of the case.
Read here: These are the questions Solberg has not answered
