Nasdaq Stockholm cleared Ericsson AB of any violations regarding the Swedish telecom company’s disclosure of a probe into corruption in Iraq.
The exchange determined an internal report that was leaked to journalists last year “did not constitute inside information,” a spokesman for Nasdaq Stockholm said Wednesday. Ericsson confirmed the decision in a statement.
Shares fell 0.3% to 55.78 kronor at 11:39 a.m. in Stockholm.
Ericsson remains under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over its handling of the Iraq scandal, in which the company says it may have paid bribes to the ISIS terror organization to gain access to transport routes. Ericsson shares fell 14% last year when it acknowledged a 2019 internal investigation into whether it made the payments.
Ericsson has said it found “serious breaches” of compliance rules but couldn’t determine the final recipients of the payments or establish that any employee directly financed terrorist organizations.
The scandal led shareholders to vote two years in a row to allow Ericsson’s chairman, chief executive officer and several other board members to be potentially held financially responsible in future lawsuits over the matter.
Earlier this year, the Swedish maker of 5G mobile networks was fined $207 million by the US Justice Department for violating a 2019 settlement over paying bribes abroad that were unrelated to the Iraq matter.
