Austrian Commission Finds Hypo Alpe Rescue Amateurish
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Austrian authorities stumbled into the country’s most expensive bank failure like badly prepared and ill-informed amateurs, a state-appointed investigation into nationalized Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International AG found.
Chancellor Werner Faymann’s government based key decisions on insufficient information, went into decisive situations without strategy and procrastinated when dealing with the European Union, according to a 344-page report released today. The group was formed by the Finance Ministry in March to find out how Austrian taxpayers have lost 5.5 billion euros ($6.8 billion) on the bank so far.