Kurdish minister implicated in Norway

Ashti A. Hawrami, the Minister for Natural Resources in the Kurdish Regional Government, or KRG, in Iraq, was the middleman in a transaction of 43 million DNO International shares last year, the Oslo Stock Exchange found in an investigation.

The probe was started after DNO sold Treasury shares to an unknown buyer in October 2008, according to minutes from a June 17 board meeting released to Bloomberg News by the exchange. The investigation found that the transaction was arranged between the minister and DNO Chief Executive Officer Helge Eide, the bourse said, citing an e-mail exchange.

DNO in April disclosed that Turkey’s Genel Enerji was the buyer of the 43 million shares. It was fined in June by the bourse for not revealing the identity of the buyer sooner.

The Stock Exchange Appeals Committee on Thursday ruled that DNO didn’t break rules on dealing with insider information, overruling the earlier fine. It upheld a ruling that the company had breached regulations in not providing the exchange with information when demanded.

“As we have reported to the market previously we did not know who acquired the shares when we sold them in October last year,” DNO spokesman Ketil Joergensen said on Friday.

DNO is the first foreign company to pump oil in Iraq since 1972 and started exports in June 1 from its Tawke field in northern Iraq.