Sixteen former managers of the Internet service provider Jippii (now Saunalahti) were acquitted on Wednesday of charges of stock market manipulation and insider trading.
Helsinki District Court ordered the state to reimburse the defendants' court costs to the tune of EUR 1.5 million. The sum largely consists of the defendants' lawyers' fees.
If the verdict is upheld by the Helsinki Court of Appeals, it is estimated that the sum will rise to more than EUR 2 million. With VAT the sum is higher, but the state gets the tax revenue for itself.
The state could also end up paying tens of thousands of euros in compensation for lost earnings to the individual defendants.
The prosecution had called for prison sentences for the former managers for a number of serious stock market crimes. Those acquitted include former CEO Harri Johannesdahl, Chairman of the Board Ilpo Kuokkanen, and board members Arto Karila and Petteri Järvinen.
The court found that the stock market report given out in the spring of 2001 did not give false or misleading information "deliberately or out of aggravated neglect".
The court also found that in the case of Johannesdahl, he did not have insider information linked with the cancellation of a share issue.
The court did not find that there was sufficient evidence that the Jippii result would have been manipulated with respect to operations in Germany.
"The prosecution has not shown that the figures reported by (Jippii) GMBH would not have reflected the true business activities in Germany."
Charges of bookkeeping violations fell because of a lack of evidence of false accounting.
Prosecutor Riitta Partia plans to appeal the acquittals, because she feels that the court did not give convincing reasons for its decision.
Former CEO Harri Johannesdahl was relieved at the acquittal, which he said was not unexpected.
"In the spring it started to become clear in the courtroom that the prosecutor did not have a case. She was supposed to show that a crime had taken place, but she just went through the same things over and over again. The prosecutor put forward opinions rather than facts."
The appeal could stretch to 2009, and by then eight years will have passed since the alleged crimes took place.
