The Helsinki District Court has handed down judgements on Monday morning on 85 persons in a large receipts-trading fraud case involving the construction branch.
The case has been in and out of court for around eighteen months, and is the largest trial - in terms of sheer number of defendants - in Finnish history.
Charges were brought against a total of 97 persons.
Custodial sentences were handed down to 44 individuals, with the longest sentence being five years.
A further 40 people received fines and one was left unpunished owing to an earlier sentence. The offences listed were tax fraud and bookkeeping irregularities.
One of the accused managed to die during the trial, in one case the prosecutor withdrew the charges, and in the remaining ten cases the court acquitted the defendants of any charges.
The trade in receipts carried on by building firms in the Greater Helsinki area is believed to have led to a shortfall of millions of euros in tax revenues.
The process is a means of evading taxes by using fake receipts to cover the fact that employees have been paid their salaries "black".
Those found guilty of the charges will be obliged to pay compensation to the tax authorities of more than EUR 5.6 million.
The sums include unpaid withholding of tax at source and employers' social security payments.
The trial began in the fall of 2007, after long preparation, and the actual trial proceedings lasted around six months, with nearly 100 court sessions.
