At Least One Person Has Been Arrested
Update (10:42 AM ET): Starbreeze AB’s investor PR chief, Ann Svensson, has provided a statement to GamesIndustry.biz.
“On Wednesday Swedish Economic Crime Authority has conducted a search query at Starbreeze AB,” her statement read. “The company has been informed that this has occurred due to suspicions of insider charges. The company as such is not subject to any suspicion. The company cooperates full with the Swedish Economic Crime Authority. The event does not affect the company or the ongoing business reconstruction.”
“Starbreeze has no further information on the matter,” the statement concluded.
Original Story:
Swedish authorities raided the Stockholm headquarters of games publisher & developer Starbreeze on Wednesday and arrested someone for alleged insider trading, according to several Swedish media reports.
“The Financial Market Chamber at EBM has today conducted several searches for suspicions of gross insider breach with links to the gaming company Starbreeze,” the official Twitter account for the Swedish Economic Crime Authority tweeted on Wednesday. “One of the searches has been carried out at Starbreeze office in central Stockholm. A person is detained.”
According to a Swedish media report, former Starbreeze AB executives Sebastian Ahlskog and Bo Andersson Klint had both sold their shares of the company for millions of Swedish korma (which is the country’s currency) at around the same period in mid-November. This apparently profited the company for 2019 and “initiated cost savings”, according to the report.
Earlier this week, the company announced that it and its five subsidiaries had filed for reconstruction due to financial troubles and had let go of its CEO, Klint.
We’ll update this story if any other significant developments occur.
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