Octopussy

Once upon a time Iceland was a colony, a mere slab of land that increased the geographical size of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Danish rulers imposed strict isolation on the island to keep the islanders from getting any ideas. Literally, getting ideas from abroad and becoming aware of any notion that they could change the balance of power.
Luckily, ever so often Algerian, Portuguese and other European fishermen/sailors/pirates managed to mix up the gene pool to prevent the islanders from developing three eyes and extra limbs.
Eventually, as with so many other colonies, the island gained independence. The year was 1944 and some might suggest that the fact that Denmark was occupied by Germany at the time somehow made it easier to secede the union of some 600 years.
As with so many other former colonies, one of the political parties was, and still is, named the Independence Party.
This conservative party has pretty much been in charge ever since. Their politicians read like a family tree and a who's who of Icelandic business. This clique of rulers was aptly nicknamed The Octopus by the public. The name evoking the many arms of society that was governed by a slippery body sitting smack dab in the middle of things.
Cartels, monopolies and nepotism was the preferred way of doing business. Violence was not necessary as it was so simple to ruin a person's reputation and finances in such a small society. It happened to quite a few people. But like anybody in a violent relationship will tell you, you don't see it when it is happening to you.
In 1994 a small window opened up. The island joined the EEA, an economic agreement for the countries that didn't want the full EU membership but kind of wanted to sort of to be part without really being part of it.
And suddenly The Octopus couldn't do whatever they wanted any more. They had to follow international laws and obligations.
The shock. The horror. The newly found principle of competitive pricing.
What? Let the consumers shop where they feel like they are getting the best price?
What? Transparency?
The Icelandic oil companies scoffed and scorned, oil cartels are a well known fact of business and surely this silly little EEA thingy didn't apply to them. And even so, they were good old Octopussy boys, one of them was married to the then minister of Justice (and Ecclesiastical Affairs... "Thou shalt not steal" from the public by keeping petroleum prices unusually high?), surely nothing bad would happen to them? Just to be safe they kept their internal pricing agreements secret and made sure that their friends kept Iceland's Commission on Competitiveness starved for funding and staff.
It was all for naught. Last week the Commission found that the three major oil companies had conspired to keep oil prices high.
All is well that ends well. Or?
The major players in this game have not been sentenced to anything. I doubt they will.
The only one who has taken a real beating over this issue, used to be a Marketing Director at one of the companies before he became the Mayor of Reykjavik. He resigned last Tuesday.
He wasn't the president of a company, nor VP, nor CFO, but Marketing Director. Even though he would have sat in on a few meetings, he would hardly have been considered a major player.
His biggest crime is that he was never in the Independence Party.