Archive for the ‘Sweden’ Category

The board member selling shares prior to the bankruptcy of Scanmining, the Swedish mining company, is sentenced to jail for one and a half year and fined for 2,8 million SEK. This is the most severe conviction so far in Sweden for insider dealing according to the prosecutor Yngve Rydberg at the Swedish Economic Crime Authority.

In December 2007 the board in Scanmining filed for bankruptcy. The mine in Blaiken did not deliver expected success and the company had faced difficulties with production, loss of income and lack of capital for some time.

This was not public information when the board member started selling his shares. During the period between October 2006 and January 2007 he sold 1,8 million shares for a total of almost 32 million SEK. Shortly thereafter he left the board of Scanmining.

The District Court of Stockholm concluded that the board of Scanmining had, during the autumn 2006, the knowledge that the financial situation of the company was actually worse than communicated to the market. The board member was aware of this and possessed inside information on each occasion when selling the shares.

The former board member was found guilty of severe insider crime and fined for 2,8 million SEK on top of 1,5-year imprisonment.

The maximum penalty in Sweden for severe insider crime is four years imprisonment. The previous record was 8 months in the so-called Pinkerton case in 1999.

Tele2 is one of Europe’s leading telecom operators, with over 24 million customers in 11 countries. Tele2 offers mobile services, fixed broadband and telephony, data network services, cable TV and content services.

Oriflame is today one of the fastest growing global beauty companies selling direct. The company is present in 61 countries, of which they are the market leader in more than half. Oriflame offers a wide range of high-quality beauty products as well as a unique opportunity to join our sales force and start your own business.

Both of those well-know companies found INSIDeR as a valuable solution for mitigating internal and external compliance risks.

1. Introduction 

The EU Market Abuse legislation (directives, regulations and Level 3 guidelines), with the market integrity and investor confidence as its primary objectives, represents a major achievement towards integrated financial markets in EU.

As a matter of domestic legislation and other applicable rules deriving from the Market Abuse legislation, issuers are expected to have adequate preventive measures, systems, procedures and controls in place to ensure discharge of their regulatory obligations and make it as difficult as possible to commit market abuse. The higher the quality of systems and controls implemented by the issuers, the lower the likelihood that their financial instruments become subject to insider dealing or other forms of market abuse.

Given the importance of issuers’ compliance efforts under the Market Abuse regime, it is vital that substantially similar standards and compliance arrangements will evolve to protect investor confidence and market integrity within the EU. A pre-condition for such evolution is an objective understanding about issuers’ anti-market abuse systems, controls and compliance practices as applied on a daily basis.

A survey conducted between February and March 2008 among leading multinational companies listed on the Nordic Market (1)  in cooperation with the City of London, represents an effort to capture such understanding on a regional level.

The survey was conducted by means of confidential questionnaire addressed to general counsels and compliance officers of companies listed on the Nordic Market. The questionnaire focused on selected elements of preventive anti-market abuse systems and controls dealing with:

• identification of inside information within the issuer and its group
• ensuring fair trading by members of the management bodies and employees
• proper handling of inside information and prevention of leaks
• ensuring the quality and reliability of compliance procedures, techniques and record-keeping regarding the above
• internal allocation of responsibilities and tasks regarding the above.

This article summarizes the key-findings of the survey and aims to provide useful comparative information for those in charge of legal and compliance with respect to Market Abuse rules.

(more…)

We’d like to thank all the participants and speakers for their contribution to an excellent compliance seminar held at Grand Hotel in Stockholm on 3rd of April 2008.

Compliance seminar where speakers from Finansinspektionen, Mannheimer Swartling and CSA Partners covered regulatory requirements, risks and practical challenges faced by the issuer-community under the Market Abuse rules, was attended by over 50 compliance practitioners, senior representatives and other experts from companies listed in Sweden.

Thorough overview regarding issuers’ obligations as well as practical interpretations given by Finansinspektionen was considered highly valuable in view of practical need to have more legal certainty when dealing with applicable rules.

Insight into key legal issues provided by speakers from Mannheimer Swartling was considered highly practical as well as observations and recommendations on the compliance and risk management shared by CSA Partners.

Discussions and questions witnessed the relevance of topics and pointed out number of areas, where further elaboration of best practice and expectations from the part of Finansinspektionen would be highly appreciated in the future.

Further materials:

• Seminar program and speakers
• Download the seminar presentations
• Photos from the seminar

(more…)

We started registrations last week for our high-profile compliance seminar in Stockholm on 3rd of April 2008.

The speakers include Swedish Finansinspektionen and leading law firm Mannheimer Swartling. We are sure the program and speeches will be interesting to all Swedish listed companies to plan their compliance activities for current and next years. The seminar is free of charge to listed companies.

There are only 5 last seats available so please look at the program and make your registration today! I hope to see you next Thursday at our morning seminar.

Update (20:30 PM): Thank you all for the registration. All seats for the seminar are booked for now! We will try to arrange additional seats, but we can not guarantee any more seats.

As we wrote last week, we have published the detailed information regarding the compliance seminar on 3rd of April in Stockholm, Grand Hotel. The seminar is about the “Compliance Challenges for Listed Companies under the Market Abuse rules – How to Manage Risks and Prevent Insider Trading?“.

There will be high-profile speakers from Swedish Finansinspektionen, Mira Naumanen, Head of Market Surveillance Unit and Kristoffer Rosell, Legal Counsellor, Insider Registry who will give an overview of issuers obligations (timely disclosure, control of inside information, insider lists, transaction reporting), possible sanctions and FI surveillance plan for 2008. We think the update will be especially interesting for company legal counsels and persons responsible for maintaining insider lists.

Others speakers include well-known lawyer Eva Hägg from law firm Mannheimer Swartling and market abuse regulatory expert Mr. Ahto Kink from CSA Partners.

Please look at the detailed agenda and register yourself to the valuable seminar, free of charge for the listed companies. The seminar will be held in Swedish and English language, followed by a workshop where INSIDeR special purpose compliance software will be demonstrated.

CSA Partners is gladly announcing a market abuse compliance seminar on Thursday, 3rd of April 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Market Abuse legislation (directives, domestic regulation and Level 3 guidelines) represents an important achievement in harmonization of EU securities markets. However, reality check reflects that there are in fact number of practical challenges, uncertainties and risk management issues on which listed companies need further guidance and support. This event aims to remind and update you in key-issues, which are of practical relevance to listed companies in this important compliance area.  

Attendance at this event will be invaluable for both the compliance departments, in-house legal teams and IR officers of listed companies, as it will bring them up to date with the latest developments and best practices in this important regulatory area. We also welcome lawyers, financial advisers  and journalists.

Please book the morning of 3^rd April in your calendar. We will announce the detailed program and speakers next week.  See you in Stockholm!