FREDERIKSHAVN: Frederikshavn Municipality was actively involved in a loan structure that enabled the sale of port properties to the scrapyard MARS – a deal that the municipality later sued the former port director, chairman of the board and lawyer for having carried out without support. This is reported by TV2 Nord.
Documents show that municipal director Thomas Eriksen and then mayor Birgit S. Hansen (S) worked to get one of the deals completed, even though there was a mortgage on one of the disputed buildings. In order for the deal to be completed, the city council guaranteed a loan of 55 million DKK in 2023, which ensured the port's liquidity to buy the port's own subsidiary FH Silo. The purpose of the new loan was to free up liquidity by replacing an existing loan without guarantee and enabled the release of the mortgage.
Despite this involvement of top municipal officials, in 2024 the municipality sued both the former port director, the chairman of the board and the port's lawyer for illegally selling three buildings for 0 kr. to MARS, as part of another property transaction for nine million kr., without the approval of the port board.
According to city council members, many were surprised that the top officials were aware of and participated in the process, which is otherwise the basis for the lawsuit against the port management.
- That you have this knowledge, and then you subsequently sue the port management as if they had this knowledge alone. That's where I think it becomes a problem. This is what I call a smokescreen, that they choose to say that they are the scapegoats, and the rest of us go free. I cannot live with that, says Christina Lykke Eriksen (SF), who is a city council member in Frederikshavn Municipality.
TV2 Nord has tried in vain to get comments from the former mayor, the municipal director and current mayor Karsten Thomsen. Several former board members for Frederikshavn Port have also refused to comment.
amp
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
