The executives in Statoil were also accused of inability to act and for withholding information from the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
The enormous shock effect of the Mongstad scandal should be understood in the light of the social and political situation of Norway in 1988.
Statoil was at the time a limited company wholly owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, who managed the entire profit.
Prime Minister Kåre Willoch's attempt to clip Statoil's wings a few years earlier had failed.
And at the same time came the bankruptcy in the largest bank, Den norske Creditbank that had announced the start of the fall of the Yuppie age.