OMV CEO Acquitted Of Insider Trading In High-Profile Court Case
January 27 2011 - 1:30PM
Dow Jones News
The chief executive of OMV AG (OMV.VI), Central Europe's largest
oil and gas company, was Thursday acquitted of charges for insider
trading in connection with a personal share buy in 2009 that
coincided with a major divestment.
Judge Claudia Moravec-Loidolt late Thursday declared Wolfgang
Ruttenstorfer "not guilty" in insider trading in connection with a
company shares buy a few days ahead of a large divestment of a
stake holding in another company.
"It was not a classic case of insider trading," Moravec-Loidolt
said, explaining that she couldn't establish a causality between
the stake sale and the share buy, and that the information in
question wasn't sufficiently solid to be regarded insider
information.
Ruttenstorfer had faced up to three years in jail if found
guilty.
State Prosecutor Michael Schoen had specifically alleged that
Ruttenstorfer's purchase of EUR620,000 worth of OMV shares on March
23, 2009, had given him an illegal total purchase price advantage
of EUR44,000, because Ruttenstorfer already knew at the time that
OMV was about to sign a deal to sell a 21.2% stake in its Hungarian
peer MOL Nyrt, a deal that made OMV's share price surge about 3% on
the day.
The case has been closely followed in Austria, where the
formerly state-owned energy company is one of the strongest
national brands and 60-year old Ruttenstorfer is held in high
regard.
Ruttenstorfer is due to retire at the end of March after having
worked with OMV since 1976, the last eight years as CEO.
-By Flemming E. Hansen, Dow Jones Newswires; +43 1 513 69 22 10;
flemming.hansen@dowjones.com
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