Cornwall Council has received 93 per cent of its ‘investments’ in the Icelandic Landsbanki Bank, losing £630,000 plus many hundreds of thousnads of pounds in unpaid interest.

This means that the authority has now rall it can from the cash originally deposited with Landsbanki in 2008 and is no longer a creditor of the bank.

Cllr Andrew Wallis explained thaht the way the council has recovered this amount is by selling its claims against the insolvent estate of Landsbanki.

The price at which the claims were sold was based on a reserve price set by the cabinet on the basis of legal advice received from the solicitors commissioned by the Local Government Association.

The LGA worked on behalf of all local authorities to lodge a claim on the estate, and financial advice was procured by the Local Government Association, independent treasury advisors and its own professional analysis of the financial position.

The proceeds of the sale were paid in cash in Pounds Sterling and these funds have already been received by Cornwall Council.

Cllr Wallis added: "In an ideal world it would have been great to recover all the monies, however, not settling could have resulted in less money being recovered. So I very much welcome this news."