The Economist reports about an EFTA court decision concerning Iceland’s decision to discriminate among depositors after the collapse of Icesave, an online bank. The bank had collected deposits in the UK and the Netherlands, using a European “passport” which relied on the notion that the Icelandic deposit insurance scheme would back those deposits. After the collapse, the insurance turned out to be insufficient; while Icelandic savers received their money back, British and Dutch depositors did not. But eventually, their respective governments bailed them out—and now went to court.

… the court found that Iceland was obliged only to make sure that it had a deposit-insurance scheme. The state was not required to pay out if the scheme had no money because of a banking crisis. Oddly, the court also found that Iceland had not breached an obligation not to discriminate between domestic and foreign depositors, even though it made only the domestic ones whole.