The Report of the Althingi Special Investigation Commission

Antecedents and Causes of the Collapse of the Icelandic Banks in 2008 and Related Events (Icelandic: Aðdragandi og orsakir falls íslensku bankanna 2008 og tengdir atburðir), better known as The Report of the Investigation Commission of Althing (Icelandic: Skýrsla rannsóknarnefndar Alþingis, or just Rannsóknarskýrsla Alþingis), and earlier referred to as a 'White Book' (Hvíta bók), is a report covering the background and the crash of the Icelandic banking system in 2008.

Following the collapse of the Icelandic banking system, Prime Minister Geir Haarde began referring to ' "a white book" intended to reveal the truth about the operations of the fallen banks' on December 11, 2012. On December 12, 2008, by legal act 142/2008, the Icelandic parliament established an investigation commission to, in the words of the law, 'seek the truth behind the events leading to, and the causes of, the downfall of the Icelandic banks in October 2008, and related events', 'granting the Commission 'exceptional investigative powers in order to appease the demonstrators and to meet the public's demand for answers as to why their three largest banks, Glitnir, Landsbanki, and Kaupthing, had collapsed'. As well as arising from popular pressure, the law was passed 'under the leadership of the speaker of the parliament, Sturla Bodvarsson, and pressure from opposition leaders such as Steingrimur J. Sigfusson'.

On December 30, the three members of the commission were appointed, being people 'with impeccable reputation': Supreme Court Justice Páll Hreinsson, who served as chairman; the Parliamentary Ombudsman Tryggvi Gunnarsson; and Sigríður Benediktsdóttir, associate chair in Economics at Yale University. Although driven by popular protest, the establishment of the SIC was not enough to placate the protesters, and the government fell in the so-called 'Kitchenware Revolution'. The commission hired 48 employees or contractors, with five teams, including legal, auditors, ethics, and quantitative analysis teams; some foreign analysts were hired, including Mark Flannery of the University of Florida and Eric Talley of the University of California, Berkeley.

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