The crime itself must have taken place in the fall of 2021 when Ica was to be bought out of the Stockholm Stock Exchange by the Ica traders’ association and AMF. Last spring, 13 people were arrested in a raid and subsequently more suspects have been linked to the insider deal.
Now 18 people connected to ICA are charged with insider trading at the Stockholm district court. According to the prosecutor, it is a man in Blekinge who had information about the deal – and who then spread it further.
By law, it is both illegal to disseminate and act on that type of information.
– Our thesis early in the investigation was that the information that there was an offer to buy ICA out of the stock exchange was leaked by someone from the ICA traders’ association board. A number of people then acted on the insider information, which was not known to the market at the time, by buying larger stakes. During the course of the investigation, through interrogation and secured evidence, we have been able to strengthen that thesis, says Pontus Hamilton, chamber prosecutor and preliminary investigation leader at the Ecocrime Authority.
Appeals for food prohibition
The prosecutor requests that the district court decide on a business ban for between three and five years for the defendants. In addition, roughly 20 million must be forfeited as compensation for crime.
The investigation is one of the largest of its kind in Sweden. The defendants are from southern Sweden, several of them from Blekinge and Småland. Twelve of the suspects are charged with serious crimes, the other six with crimes of the normal degree.
See a summary of the Ica mess in the video:
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