The ruling of the court concerns whether the former CEO committed gross swindling alternatively gross market manipulation when she made statements regarding anti money laundering actions taken by the bank in its Estonian operations. It also concerns whether she unlawfully disclosed insider information in a meeting with the largest shareholders of the bank.
The court concludes that the former CEO disseminated misleading statements in interviews with the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and the Swedish news agency TT in connection to the bank’s release of its third quarterly report for 2018. The statements conveyed the misleading message that there did not exist any suspicious money laundering links to the operations in Estonia of another bank. The misleading information was liable to influence the assessment of the Swedish bank from a financial point of view, and thereby cause a loss.
The court convicts the former CEO of gross swindling. She is acquitted of the other charges brought against her.
The sanction imposed by the court is imprisonment for one year and three months. One member of the court dissents regarding the sanction.
– The court has assessed several statements that the CEO has made to the press and equity analysts. The court has concluded that two of the statements have been incorrect or misrepresented facts in a way that they have been misleading in the sense of the Swedish Criminal Code, the presiding judge of the court Sven Johannisson states.