Supreme Court hands down prison sentences for insider trading by TJ Group owners

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Finland’s first non-suspended prison sentences for stock market crimes were handed down on Thursday.
      The Finnish Supreme Court sentenced Jyrki Salminen, the former CEO of TJ Group, and Tuomo Tilman, the company’s former Chairman of the Board to two years and four months for insider trading.
      The two, who were the main owners of TJ Group, had been given fines by Helsinki District Court, and suspended prison sentences by the Court of Appeals.
      The Supreme Court decision is seen as a major precedent in punishing white-collar crime, coming as it did after many experts had voiced criticism of what they have seen as excessively lenient sentences for securities crime.
     
The case involved a share issue which took place in February 2000. The two defendants sold shares of their company worth millions of euros after artificially glossing over the company’s economic difficulties to shore up the company’s share price.
      The Helsinki Court of Appeals sentenced the two to two-year suspended sentences for aggravated misuse of insider information, as well as three counts of securities information crime.
     
The Supreme Court said that the reasons for the harsher sentence included the planning that went into the crimes, the misuse of a responsible position, and the serious erosion of confidence in the securities market.
      The Supreme Court also kept in force the decision to order both men to forfeit nearly EUR 7.8 million in illegally acquired income. The court also increased the fine that TJ Group was ordered to pay to EUR 100,000. TJ Group is currently known as Westend ICT.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police to investigate massive suspected insider trading case in TJ Group (28.1.2005)
  TJ Group trial: small investors also want satisfaction (5.10.2005)
  Court confiscates TJ Group owners´ properties worth tens of millions of euros (10.2.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat